


Life After Joining The Whitebeard Pirates

by stormy1x2



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, Brothels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Debt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Food, Gen, M/M, Money, Museums, Nakama, Nakamaship, Narcolepsy, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7895833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormy1x2/pseuds/stormy1x2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one-shots detailing Ace's life after accepting the mark of Whitebeard. To be updated as inspiration strikes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Appetite for Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bunch of Ace ad WBP drabbles pop into my head recently, and rather than post a bunch of individual stories, I thought I'd take a page from everyone else's books and post them under one heading instead. These drabbles can be considered one universe, though not necessarily the TYD universe.

When Ace finally gave in after one hundred days of attacking Whitebeard and became a member of the family, Thatch and Marco breathed a sigh of relief and figured that that'd be the end of the daily craziness. What they didn't know was that Ace joining the crew would bring about a whole brand new kind of craziness.

Shortly after Ace joined:

“What are you doing?” Thatch asked, staring in awe at the pile of food Ace had managed to load onto two trays. The mound of mashed potatoes was over a foot high. He had a soup bowl filled with peas and green beans. There were half a dozen two-pound steaks piled up like stacks of lumber. An entire mixing bowl of salad chock full of veggies, apple slices and walnuts took up half of the other tray, along with three huge slabs of Sea King meat and a pitcher of milk. Ten hard-boiled eggs wobbled precariously along the rim of the tray and to top it off, there was an entire chicken carcass dangling from Ace's mouth. “Did one of the divisions turn you into a waiter for their table?”

Marco noted the absence of any beer.

The teenager shook his head. “I didn't want to make like, twenty trips,” Ace said, remarkably clearly for one who was actively munching on a full chicken. “This way, I only have to make four or five.”

“This is how much you normally eat?” Marco asked suddenly, frowning at the teenager. There was no way the kid had been eating anywhere close to this amount per meal for the last three months. He'd had to fight to get Ace to even accept a single bowl of stew. “In _one_ meal?”

Beside him, Thatch's eyes widened in comprehension as he realized the exact same thing, and then they narrowed fiercely.

Ace nodded self-consciously, suddenly hunching over a little bit. “Um...I'm sorry, I can cut down--”

Marco opened his mouth to speak but the head cook got there first.

“Don't you dare!” Thatch snapped, tone sharp but eyes soft and somewhat sad. “I'm just wondering how you survived the past couple of months, since you avoided the mess hall so much, and I _know_ you didn't take nearly this amount from the storerooms.”

The teen shrugged, keeping his eyes on his tray instead of meeting theirs. “I did a lot of fishing at night,” he said quietly. “Quick flash-fry and I had all the fish I could eat. No biggie.”

Thatch frowned, worry lines creasing his forehead. “But that's not a balanced diet,” protested the cook, and he shot Marco a quick look. “After dinner – of which you will eat as much as you are normally supposed to – we are paying a visit to the infirmary so they can check you out and make sure you're not suffering from any vitamin deficiencies. That way we can fix up any dietary issues.”

Ace glowered. “I don't have any dietary issues.”

“Then you shouldn't have any problems with going along with this,” Marco said with a smile.

Ace scowled and slunk off to the side table to eat. Thatch watched him go, and then hung up his apron. “Gonna go give the nurses a heads up,” he murmured as he left the galley.

Marco nodded. Thatch would feel guilt over this even though there was no way for him to have known. Izou sidled up next to him.

“What's up?”

Marco nodded at Ace and the mountain of food that was very rapidly disappearing. Izou blinked a few times, watching as three Sea King steaks were forked through and swallowed in less time that it took to actually say the words 'three Sea King Steaks'. “Oh my.”

“Yeah,” Marco said with a sigh. “Oyaji picked another interesting one, that's for sure.”


	2. Free Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pirates usually have 2 major interests once on land, but Ace has never been a follower in his life.

 

 

o0o

LaJtWBP – Free Time

o0o

 

It wasn't the first or even the second island that Jozu picked up on it, but he definitely noticed on the third. His division mixed with Marco's blended first and second and joined up with fourth for their excursion onto land. Their targets? The bars and then the brothels.

Jozu felt no need to visit the brothels but he did not begrudge those who did. Whitebeard pirates were all given a stern lecture to by Marco at some point shortly after joining the crew, and they were all given a reminder as they left the ship that the proprietors of said establishments and their employees were to be treated with respect at all times, and were to be paid both promptly and in the required amount. Any negative behaviour would be handled by Marco who kept a long list of highly undesirable chores that always needed doing and he was more than willing to supervise.

Ace had been given the lecture shortly after officially becoming a Whitebeard and aside from a slight blush, he hadn't gone into the series of questions most pirates had then thrown at Marco, wanting to verify what behaviours constituted disrespect. Thatch was convinced it was because Ace was still a virgin.

Jozu wasn't so sure. Ace got mad when teased about his possible virginity but he insisted it was because he hated having people joke about his private life which was no one's business but his own and his partners. On that, Jozu had to agree.

On the other hand, Ace never followed the others into the brothel. Off the ship, yes, to the bar, sure, but once the men got into the right frame of mind and were all staggering towards their favorite establishment, Ace usually slipped away. Jozu or one of the other commanders usually stayed to keep watch over their men from the lounge areas provided and make sure no one was in over their heads, pirates _or_ ladies.

It was the third trip in since Ace's induction, and a well-lubricated Thatch had staggered up the hill towards Madam Yishka's along with Jozu. “Where'd he go, Joz?” Thatch asked, peering around at the pathway. Ahead and behind were drunken pirates, some singing, some dancing, and some resolutely heading for Madam Yishka's in a bee-line fashion, despite the early hour. “Where's Ace?”

Jozu shrugged. “No clue. He always leaves before we get to the brothels, Thatch.”

Thatch's eyes widened in shock. “Really? Where's he go then?”

Jozu sighed. “I just told you I don't know, Thatch.”

He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

 

0o0o0o0o0o0

 

Meanwhile, Marco had decided to find out for himself what the young teen got up to when left to his own devices. He cloaked his own haki – a habit, really, as Ace didn't really have enough training to sense haki yet – and followed behind a stone-sober and determined-looking Ace.

The young teen was checking a map he'd been given by the bartender, and scanning the roads of the small town. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and Ace jogged towards his target, pushing the glass door inward and disappearing. Marco read the sign on the building, and his own eyes widened with surprise – and interest. He reached into his pocket to check he had enough spare bellie and then followed his subordinate inside.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Ace pressed his nose against the glass, scanning the ancient pottery that had been painstakingly glued back together by one of the museum's archeologists. “You're pretty beautiful for being three thousand years old,” he murmured. “Amazing how some things seem to last forever.”

“I have to agree.”

Ace whipped his head around to see Marco looking over his shoulder at the glazed jug. “Marco?”

“I didn't know you liked museums, Ace,” Marco said, giving the teen a gentle smile. “Usually there are two main targets of pirates visiting the islands, and I can assure you this place isn't one of them.”

Ace couldn't stop a small blush from forming, so he scowled lightly instead. “Yeah, well, try being raised as one of the worst-kept secrets on the island and see how eager _you_ are to learn there's more to life than just a jungle and a garbage dump,” he muttered, half to himself.

Marco raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

Ace shook his head. “Let's just say that I saw enough people drinking, fucking and fighting where I grew up. ” He paused. “A... friend of mine was always into reading but I never understood why - until I left the island and saw how much I didn't know. Even stuff like this is kinda cool.” He nodded at the pottery collection on display. “I even collected a few books, believe it or not, but they burned up in one of the last Marine attacks on the Mystic before we set out to find Jinbei.” Ace shrugged. “I guess it just means I wasn't meant to keep those kinds of things. But at least I can visit museums and read what they have to say. I try to remember as much as I can, like he did.” He turned back to the pottery.

He didn't see the somewhat empathizing – and then determined – look on Marco's face (who had also silently noted the past tense usage in his reference to his friend). He did however notice Marco's own interest, and welcomed the commander's company when Marco asked to join him on his museum trek.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Ace settled back on his bunk. He had about an hour before dinner and a nap was sounding pretty good right about then. Just before he sunk into slumber, there was a knock on his door.

“Come in!”

No one answered him. He grumbled, getting to his feet. It never failed – just as he was about to get some shut-eye, there was a knock at the door. Really. Never failed. He pulled the door open, ready to yell, and then stopped.

There was no one there.

Ace growled, and turned to shut the door and go back to sleep, when something caught his attention. He looked down and saw a plastic bag tied by the handles. A piece of folded paper was taped to the top. Carefully pulling it off, he flipped the paper open.

 

_Ace,_

_I'm sorry the Marines ruined something so important to you, but the Moby is much bigger and much better protected than one small ship, no matter how strong the crew. You should try again. I don't know which titles you lost, but these are some of my favorites to help you get started on a new collection._

_Marco_

 

Ace pulled the handles apart and stared down at a small pile of books. _The Ancient City of Alabasta –_ _A_ _General_ _History_ , _Aquatic Pathways_ \- _West Blue_ _White Whale_ _Migration Routes_ , _From Shells to Bellie – A History of Trading On The Grand Line_ , _Species of Little Garden Volume I,_ _Natural Remedies of East Blue_ , and _Famous_ _South_ _Blue Fables_. It was an impressive and varied assortment.

A small tendril of warmth, unconnected to his powers, trickled through him as he gently pulled the book on Alabasta out completely and stroked the leather binding in awe. He picked up the bag by its handles and brought it inside, setting it carefully on the small desk provided to him. Then he took his selected volume to his bed, wiggled into a comfortable spot, and cracked it open, instantly losing himself.

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o

 

Thatch looked anxiously around the dining room. “Something's wrong, Marco,” he insisted. “Ace doesn't miss meals! Ever!”

Marco only grinned and worked on finishing his own meal. Then he'd see about packing up something to go and checking up on a certain fire starter. He had a feeling he knew where he was.

 

 


	3. Pay It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco notices Ace paying a pretty heavy bill each month and gets curious.

 

Marco sighed and checked another name off his list. Beside him, Izo handed over a small money bag to one of their brothers who waved and headed towards the gangplank. Another brother immediately stepped up to fill the void and Marco flipped through his pages to find the next name.

It was pay-day. He hated pay-day.

While anyone could approach Izo – treasurer for this year, as it was a job no one wanted to keep after their last full-time treasurer had made it to a record-setting four years before cracking (he had stripped off his clothes, scurried up to the crows nest and spent the next three hours screaming he had no money while throwing broken bits of wood he bit out of the nest itself at anyone attempting to climb up to him. It had taken Marco nearly four hours to talk him down long enough for one of the nurses to climb up the mast and inject a sedative. It had been a very trying time for poor Curiel) – for cash needed for their division, once a month every member of the Whitebeard family was allotted a certain amount of money for basic upkeep of the ship and for defending their family – and for buying candy to bribe Thatch with so he would refrain from including them in his practical jokes.

(Privately most of the Commanders thought that should be automatically included as a Division expense but Marco wasn't buying it. They could man up and face Thatch like proud warriors – or they could use their own funds to keep the hair dye and jello at bay. He didn't care anymore.)

Division heads were given the money they then distributed to their men. Marco dealt with both division 1 and division 2 and was looking forward to the day Whitebeard made his final decision about Ace so that he could halve his duties and maybe try getting on to a somewhat regular sleep schedule.

“Hey Marco! Hey Izo!”

Speak of the devil.

Marco watched as Ace bounded up to him, by-passing the line and perching on the railing of the ship next to Marco's official table.

Yes, it was official. It had been a very special ceremony involving Thatch, Fossa's toolkit, Kingdew's bathrobe, the theft of Izo's jewelry box and more liquor in less time than even his healing ability had been able to handle (he had been completely tanked for nearly twenty minutes which was a record that likely would never be beaten) and Thatch had made full use of all twenty of those minutes before sanity had returned.

The end result was a table with a tablecloth made of very nice monogrammed silk fabric (replacing Kingdew's robe had taken a big chunk out of Marco's funds that quarter), his name etched across the top via Thatch's swords (only slightly squiggly, as Thatch retained his masterful ability even when six sheets to the wind), and the addition of several of Izo's jewels that had been stuck in the corners with shipwright glue to give it that 'official look', or so Thatch had proclaimed.

(Izo had shot off Thatch's pompador when he saw what had been done to his jewels, and only Thatch's fervent vow to replace them had saved his sideburns.)

“What did you do?” Marco asked, absently checking off one of his many gunners who accepted the small sack of coins with a cheerful salute and followed the continuous stream of pirates heading for shore.

Ace swiftly adopted a look of complete and total innocence, pressing one hand to his chest as though Marco's words were shocking him. “Me?”

“Yes. You.” Another pirate went by, nodding at Marco and giving Ace a high five as he passed. “Who are you hiding from this time?”

Ace didn't answer, just long enough to make Marco pull his eyes off the clipboard, and then he smiled widely, teeth practically glinting in the sun. “No one. Geez, can't a guy visit his buddies?”

Marco rolled his eyes but a familiar smile was tugging at his lips – he couldn't help it. The teen's enthusiasm was infectious and that smile should have been declared illegal the first time he flashed it at them during a poker game and successfully fleeced four commanders out of their entire pay. “Get your money?”

“Yep!” Ace held out a small bag. “I'm here for the birdie.”

Izo chuckled and went over to the large cages that were kept on the side of the hallway leading to the commander's quarters. They were out of the sun so the poor animals didn't get overheated. They had an actual coop on the roof of the Pop's quarters on the main deck for the eight birds they kept that was quite large and airy, but brought them down on pay days for those who needed them. Otherwise they stayed on the roof, with only a handful of people allowed to approach them. If one needed to send a message, the first port of call was to Marco, Izo, Rakuyo, Kingdew or Jiru, who would then handle the birds.

Having been painstakingly trained since they day they had hatched, they were extremely unlikely to fly away, but having over fifteen hundred people stomping around trying to get money and get on and/or off the ship to spend it/show off what they bought meant the cages provided the birds with desperately needed protection. The birds played a fairly important role in Whitebeard's governance over his territory, after all, in addition to regular updates and correspondence.

Whitebeard pirates were typically seen as 'good guys', particularly by the islands they defended, but they were still pirates, and sometimes they overspent cash they didn't have. Fortunately, a deal with Whitebeard had been worked out, allowing them to pay the remainder of what they owed on the next pay day. Whitebeard was very firm on his sons repaying their debts, particularly to the vendors on what he considered to be 'his' islands, and refused to allow his sons to build up a debt of more than two months. The commanders helped keep track of known debts and everyone knew to 'fess up if they messed up so payment could be made and the offender made to work it off in the form of extra chores Marco had a list of, just in case.

It happened. But as long as they paid their debts and kept the peace among their islands, Marco didn't care what they spent their funds on.

Ace was a different story though. Every month he borrowed one of their long distance coo's to send a money package off to the East Blue mail distribution centre (where a local coo would be dispatched to his home town), never failing to send at least a full quarter of his pay, sometimes more.

In the beginning, when Marco had had little to no clue about Ace's background, he'd wondered if Ace had some sort of large debt he was trying to pay off. After six months of seeing Ace calmly send off a chunk of his money seemingly without a care in the world, he'd finally asked if Ace was in some sort of financial trouble, only to be told by a giggling Ace (and hadn't _that_ been an adorable sight) that technically he didn't have to send the money but he felt obligated to. And seeing as how Ace didn't seem to have many vices where he would actually need money (the boy rarely gambled – and when he did, he always won, the little devil - , didn't drank outside of toasts, hated shopping, and avoided the brothel's like the plague) aside from a few coins to sample the local delicacies or hit the local museums, Marco had decided it was none of his business.

Thatch was convinced Ace was supporting a family – wife, three children, in-laws and the family dog, the whole shebang - while Haruta thought Ace was sending money home like a lot of their brothers did to help their parents pay for their siblings, for food, education or whatever else they needed.

Vista on the other hand, remembering Ace's words of an obligation, had stroked his moustache and pondered whether or not Ace was simply supporting a charity of some kind – like perhaps an orphanage. He was convinced that Ace was an orphan (his complete befuddlement over how to act as someone's son or even a member of the family in general was still a source of both sympathy _and_ entertainment amongst the commanders) and was sending his money back to the facility that had raised him.

Izou was convinced Ace was paying back people and their belongings he'd accidentally set on fire (seeing as how often he did it on board the Moby, especially after falling sleep).

Curiel held out the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, _one_ of his brothers was planning for the future and was stockpiling it away somewhere. Unlikely, of course. But Curiel could always hope.

All in all, there were numerous bets going on. It was absolutely horrible, the way the commanders and their men would sink money into Ace's business when they should have been minding their own. Still, even Marco had to admit he was more than a little curious (and that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he felt Vista was the closest of them all and had been promised a percentage should Vista actually be made the winner of said betting scheme).

Izo brought over Scourge, the coo that routinely flew to Paradise and East Blue for them. Marco stepped away from the table with him, to give Ace a bit of privacy and let Izo get on with the rest of the payments.

Ace grinned and reached out a hand to scruff Scourge's feathers, ignoring the warning clacks of the large bird's beak. Marco wasn't sure how or why it had happened, but the grizzled old Coo seemed to have a soft spot for the soon-to-be Second Division Commander. He shook his head. “Same place as always?”

“Mm. Foosha Village, on Dawn Island, Party's Bar.”

Marco blinked. This was new. “Don't you mean the East Blue Distribution Centre?'

Ace grinned. “Not since this guy showed me he knew where to go!” He stroked the delicate feathers around the grumpy bird's eye. “Didn't ya Scourge?”

The Coo huffed, ruffling his feathers. Marco blinked again. “What do you mean?”

Ace looked at Marco, a faint pink tinge on his cheeks. “Um, this guy... I guess he must have followed the local Coo to see where my money was going each month, 'cause last time he came back with a letter from Mak---uh, a person I know from my home town. I guess since I'm pretty much the only one who ever sends Scourge out there, he figured he might as well do the whole delivery himself.” Ace grinned sheepishly and tugged his cowboy hat down, reaching his other hand into his pocket for a strip of bacon that had miraculously survived breakfast and feeding it to the Coo.

“I see.” Marco's lips twitched. “So who's Mak?”

Ace flushed even redder. “Shut up.”

“A boyfriend?”

Ace rolled his eyes at him. “No.”

“A girlfriend?”

This made the teen's head snap up and he drilled Marco with a look of horror. “ _What_? NO. She's Lu--” Ace slapped a hand over his mouth.

This was too easy. And too fun. “Oh,“ Marco said, nodding his head as though he understood. “She's your little brother's girlfriend?”

Ace's face turned green.

Apparently that had not been the right answer either.

“ _No_!” hissed Ace. He took a deep breath, and then reflexively checked to make sure no one was listening to them. Marco waited patiently. “She's more like... Luffy's... mom? I guess?”

Marco found himself blinking in surprise again. “ _His_ mom?” Not his _and_ Ace's? Which suddenly brought up another bunch of questions he really wanted to ask, but he heroically restrained himself. “What do you mean, 'like?'”

Ace hunched himself up on the railing, wrapping his arms around his legs. All it would take was one solid breeze or a push, and Ace would be heading for a watery grave but the fiery teen never seemed to consider that possibility.

Marco shifted slightly closer, just in case.

“Yeah, _like_. She's not his mother, but she helped raise him before he was brought to where I was.” Ace peeked over his arm at Marco. “She's not our— _his_ mom, but she kinda acted like it? I dunno, she brought clothes and stuff...” His voice trailed off as his cheeks turned pink, and Ace resolutely turned his attention back to the Coo who was attentively sniffing Ace's pocket for more tidbits.

Yes, this actually increased the number of questions Marco suddenly found himself wanting to ask about, rather than decreasing it. Obviously Ace saw her the same way but didn't want it known for some reason. Marco decided to roll with it for now. If Ace got any more fidgety, he'd take off before Marco could learn anything else.

He instead leaned over and picked up the Coo, setting him on his lap. “So Scourge does the whole thing himself, hmm?” Marco gave a mock-glare at the Coo, one of the first Coo's they'd purchased years ago. He and his mate were the parents of the four Coo's (two male and two female) that had hatched a few years later. Two of their young female Coo's had been sent to a Coo facility for breeding (technically only accessible by Marines, but Whitebeard had many children and not all of them stayed or lived on the Moby) and had returned to hatch two fine young Coo's that had finished their training two years prior. They didn't want to overwhelm themselves with birds, but when Scourge and his mate retired, likely in a few years, their females would be sent to the centre again to add to their family. Marco took a keen interest in the Coo's, their habits, their families, and their training, and ignored everyone who blamed his devil fruit for it. “Bad Scourge, keeping secrets.”

“Like he's going to just tell you,” Ace scoffed, grinning as he held out another miraculously surviving piece of bacon. Scourge hopped off Marco's lap and headed straight for Ace again. “See? He likes me best.”

“Only because you feed him things that are bad for him,” Marco returned, reaching out to poke the teenager in the shoulder, mock-glaring at him, and then turning the look on to the bird. “He knows he's not supposed to be eating that.”

Scourge glared at him and then slurped down the bacon, swallowing loudly with a satisfied trill.

“Bratty bird.”

Ace was trying to hide his giggles. “He is not,” he said, rubbing Scourge's head. “He's a good boy, right Scourge?” The Coo turned his back on Marco with a little huff and snuggled right up to the boy.

Marco face-palmed. “Surrounded by traitors,” he muttered.

Ace beamed at him, and then held out the envelope to Scourge who obligingly turned to his side and pecked open the little carrier he wore. Ace dropped the stuffed envelope inside and closed it back up. “I'd give you more bacon for the road, but I know--” He glanced at Marco, and then sighed. “--Mak _ino_ will give you a full meal.”

Scourge squawked happily and then launched himself off the railing. Marco and Ace watched him disappear into the clouds. Marco nudged Ace's shoulder. “So what is it you send every month? I'm curious.”

Ace shrugged and hopped off the railing. “Paying off an old debt, just like everyone else.”

Marco frowned, concerned. “That amount every month and it's still not paid off? Ace, do you need help with your finances?”

The younger man blinked at him. “My finances? Who said it was my debt to pay off?” Then he winked and disappeared into the crowd of pirates still fighting their way on and off the ship.

Marco rolled his eyes. One day, Ace would be comfortable enough to share with them. He could wait. And with that thought, he shook his head and returned to his table to help Izo with the next round of payments.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate my endings. Sucky sucky suckiness. So much suckiness. But I'm happy with the rest of it. How the Coo's work is another one of my head cannons. I am of the belief that Coo's can always 'sense' their home, and so they're trained to fly to various distribution centres around the OP world where local Coo's travel to deliver the mail. Otherwise I cannot in my freaking mind figure out how the hell those damn birds deliver ANYTHING.


	4. Initiation Oops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thatch plans what he thinks is an epic prank for Ace's official initiation into the WHP's. It does not go according to plan.

 

“It'll be the best prank ever,” Thatch boasted quietly. “Rakuyo said he could get the paints to match exactly, and Curiel's making the stencil. We just gotta get Bay to sign off on knocking the kid out for a couple of hours and then the initiation will be complete!”

Haruta snickered and high-fived him. “Sounds awesome, Thatch. What can I do?”

“Yes, Thatch, what can Haruta do?”

The two pranksters whirled around at the sound of familiar drawled out tones. Marco was giving them a mild glare, which told them that he knew they were up to something, but not _what_. “Hey, Marco!”

“Hey, Thatch.” Marco folded his arms. “Confession time.”

Thatch grinned and sidled over to his rule-loving brother. “Relax, feather-head. We're just getting stuff ready for Ace's initiation prank! Y'know, celebrate the fact he truly is one of us now!”

“He's done it for the last thirty people who joined,” Haruta added. “C'mon, Marco – it's tradition!”

Marco's brows furrowed. “None of the last thirty people who joined had tempers as short – or as dangerous – as Ace does.”

“That's why it's going to be epic,” Thatch proclaimed. He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “A most cunning plan indeed.”

“He's been with us for two months already. It took you that long to think of your epic plan?”

Thatch scowled at him and stuck out his tongue.

Marco fought the urge to roll his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose instead. “Care to share the details?'

“Nope. All shall be surprised and impressed,” Thatch boasted. Then he blinked and began counting on his fingers. “Okay, except myself and Haruta. And Curiel. And Rakuyo.”

Marco's eyes widened slightly. “That many people involved in one prank?”

“....And Bay.”

“Seriously?”

“A very specialized prank, Marco. You may bask in my brilliance once it has been shown to the world.”

Marco watched Thatch and Haruta scurry down the hallway, and couldn't help but feel concerned about what they were going to do. Something inside him just said this was not likely to go the way Thatch was hoping it would. He hoped he was wrong.

 

o0o

 

Ace woke up feeling unusually muzzy and muddle-headed. He blinked blearily at his dinner congealing half-under his face, and groaned as he took in the sounds of good-natured laughing. “Not again...”

“Always at dinner, huh, Ace?” Izou asked, a smirk on his face, but he had a towel in his hand which made everything all good.

Ace accepted it with a sheepish grin and began to towel his face off, yawning as he did so. “Guess so... s'weird though... I took my meds this morning and had a nap and everything...” He yawned again and so he missed the look of concern Izou shot across the table to Marco. “Never been this dizzy from an attack either...”

He raked his hands through his hair to make sure the worst was out and then scanned himself to see if he'd missed anything. He was just double-checking his arm guard when he noticed something and suddenly all the air left his lungs in one breath.

He stared, suddenly feeling freezing cold despite his Mera Mera no Mi powers, and his hands started to shake as he yanked his arm across his chest and stared with deep and unrelenting horror at his tattoo.

Sabo's mark. His tribute. The only tangible memory he had of his brother, the one that only he and Luffy knew the meaning of on sight, but meant that he'd been able to keep Sabo's dream alive, that he'd been able to bring Sabo to the sea with him, even though his brother had been killed years ago....

He stared, uncomprehending at his name, scrolled in the familiar black calligraphy font Makino had helped him decide on but with a shocking deletion. ACE.

A

C

E

Sabo's mark. Sabo's flag. The proof that Sabo was still on the sea with him.

Sabo's mark was gone.

Ace felt his whole body begin to shake.

 

o0o

 

Marco had been leery of Thatch's prank, especially when he saw what Thatch had been planning. Bay had supplied a small dose of a sleeping pill that Thatch had dissolved in Ace's rum, and according to Thatch, Bay had given Ace a placebo that morning instead of his usual meds. The two combined had ensured that Ace would pass out just as he was finishing his first round of dinner.

Moving quickly, Rakyo was there with a tin of paint matching Ace's flesh tones exactly, and he wasted no time in painting over the boy's tattoo. It would wash right off, he'd assured Marco as he painted, but still, Marco felt uneasy. His unease only continued to grow as Haruta used a small dial to help dry the paint quickly. Curiel was there with a stencil set and Thatch carefully repainted Ace's tattoo, minus the crossed out 'S'. The idea was to tell Ace that they'd fixed his tattoo for him, so he didn't have to live with the x'd out error. Then after getting a picture of his stunned face, they'd tell him it was washable and life would go on.

Haruta had just finished drying the black ink when Ace twitched, and she leaped back over the table, dropping into her seat.

Marco watched as Ace stirred and then scowled at his plate, groaning softly. “Not again...”

“Always at dinner, huh Ace?” Izou handed a towel over.

The first division commander watched silently as Ace grumbled and cleaned himself up, matching Izou's concerned look with one of his own when Ace mentioned being dizzy. Drugs and pranks were never a good combination, even if Bay _had_ said it was harmless. The sick feeling in his stomach was growing worse. He tensed as Ace finally checked his arms for any remaining traces of food and saw the instant Ace noticed what had been done to him.

Thatch and Haruta as well as a few other division members grinned. “Hey Ace! We helped fix up that little error on your arm for you--” and stopped as Marco held his hand up.

Marco watched as Ace froze, blood draining from his face so quickly it looked like someone had pulled his biological plug. His freckles stood out starkly against his white skin. He was trembling, first his hands, and then his whole body and Marco decided it was time to intervene. “Ace--”

 

_WHAM._

 

Marco froze in place as he felt an unbelievable wave of Conqueror's Haki slam across the entire galley, knocking out three-quarters of his brothers in an instant. Only his fellow commanders remained upright and even half of them were looking a bit dazed. Shit, shit, _shit,_ he'd had no idea Ace had Conqueror's Haki. Thatch was wavering in his seat, eyes slightly unfocused.

Izou was white as a sheet, staring at Ace in complete shock. “Ace--”

“What. The. _Fuck_.” Ace's voice was like an arctic winter, so cold and dead. His hair covered his eyes, they couldn't see his expression, but his voice was painful to hear. Full of loss and fear, anger and betrayal and did Thatch _ever_ pick the wrong prank to pull this time. Marco felt his insides twist even more. “What did you _do_.”

It wasn't a question so much as it was a demand for an answer. Across from Ace, Thatch tried visibly to pull himself together and moved to stand, obviously about to take full responsibility. Marco kicked his shin under the table and Thatch stopped moving. Marco slowly reached out a hand to touch Ace's shoulder and gasped as Ace turned to fire and twisted away from him, leaving the table entirely and slamming his back against the wall. “Ace, calm down--”

“ _Calm down?_ ” Ace's face snapped up and the commanders gaped at the sheer fury and rage roiling in the flames that had replaced his irises. “How fucking dare you?!?” His chest heaved, like he wasn't able to take in enough air – Marco could hear him wheezing. “My... Sa... how could you?”

Marco – as well as the other commanders – was horrified to see freaking _tears_ start to well up in Ace's eyes, born of fury and an emotional pain so deep it was shredding Ace apart right before their eyes. He immediately blinked them away but everyone had seen.

“You had no right,” Ace gasped, edging sideways towards the galley doors. “No right to take it away!”

“Ace, wait!” Thatch managed to get out even under the pressure Ace was still exerting.

“ _Bastards,_ ” Ace hissed, and disappeared out the galley doors like greased lightning, leaving scorch marks on the floor and along the wall.

“What the hell,” breathed Vista. “What did you _do,_ Thatch?”

He wasn't asking about the prank itself and everyone knew it. “I don't know,” Thatch said shakily. “But it clearly was a huge mistake.”

Marco ignored them and headed for the doors. “Everyone stay here. Let me and Pops handle him for now. Commanders, keep the upper deck clear until I give the word.”

No one argued. Commanders headed for their division quarters while the rest of the men remained seated in the galley. Hushed whispers filled the air, and his last quick look back saw Thatch lowering his head, Haruta doing the same next to him. He'd talk to them later. Right now he had a fire starter to worry about.

Marco went immediately to Oyaji's chair. His father was already standing, though his many IV's didn't allow for him to move away from his chair. Marco noted several of the nurses sitting down, looking shaky. That had been a rather strong wave of haki for someone untrained. He looked up to see his father looking back at him with concern. “Pops.”

“Ace?”

He nodded. “Yes, sir. A prank gone wrong.”

Whitebeard's forehead creased, and the grip he had on his bisento caused the leather wrappings to creak. “Ace is not one to take pranks so seriously. I had not realized he had awakened his Conquerors Haki yet.”

Marco stared at his father. “You knew?”

“I suspected.” Whitebeard suddenly looked old and tired. He sat back down on his massive chair, reaching for the ever-present jug of saki he kept next to him. “Go, Marco. Bring him to me when you find him. I would see that he is all right for myself.”

“Aye, Oyaji.”

It wasn't hard to find Ace. Marco followed the near-tangible pressure of Ace's aura, barely needing his observation haki at all, and found the teen already uncovering the Striker from the tarp he kept over it, and moving to start lowering it to the water. “Ace, wait.”

“Leave me alone,” the teen growled.

“Ace--”

“You knew they were going to do something, didn't you?” Ace didn't look up from where he was checking the winches to make sure they were secure. A silent snarl escaped him as he tugged loose a frayed edge and smoothed the track down. “I didn't fall asleep. I was drugged, wasn't I?”

Marco sighed. “Yes. But--”

“You drugged me and changed my tattoo on me and you honestly think I'm going to stay here?” Ace hissed, finally raising his face and staring at Marco with two burnt out coals that once used to be silver-sheened eyes. The betrayal could barely be seen in them for the fury. “It is taking everything I have not to let loose an Enkai right here and right now.” He moved around to the other side to check the winches there so he could lower it.

“It's washable.”

“...” Ace looked at Marco with a blank expression. “What?”

“The tattoo. It's washable.” Marco held his breath, hoping that Ace would finally calm down.

Ace stared at him, and then snorted. “Yeah. Figures it would be something like that.” He began cranking the pump, beginning to lower the Striker down to the water below.

Marco stared at him. “Ace, it isn't permanent. Your tattoo is still there. Thatch meant it as your final initiation prank--”

“And that makes it okay?” Ace snapped, glaring at him once again. “It's _okay_ that they messed with my meds, even though my system is fucked up enough as it is and even one day can throw me off for a week? It's _okay_ that the fucking _chef_ roofied me – the guy I am supposed to trust beyond all doubt with my food? It's _okay_ that they thought they had the right to trick me into thinking the only tangible memory I have of my brother was gone forever?” Ace took a deep breath before looking straight into Marco's eyes. “Would you let someone deface Oyaji's symbol as a joke?”

Never. And when he put it like that, Marco had to admit the fiery teen had more than a little right to be angry. He knew he should have stopped Thatch. But he wanted to clarify something before he even attempted to work out a peace bridge between his two brothers. “What do you mean your only tangible memory? You told me your little brother was back on your home island.”

“You lost the right to know anything else about me when you let them drug and assault me,” Ace snarled. Striker hit the water below them with a small splash.

Those words hurt. Marco held up his hands, trying to remain calm and be the rock he needed to be. “Where are you going?”

“Off this ship.” Ace's eye was twitching slightly. “I need to get off this ship before I decide to blow up the kitchen with Thatch still in it.”

Angry or no, there were certain things one did not say about anyone on the Moby Dick. Threats were not taken lightly when not made in a joking fashion. The seriousness in Ace's tone disturbed him. Marco narrowed his eyes at the teen. “Ace...”

Ace stopped turning the crank and fisted his hands at his sides, knuckles turning white from strain. “I don't want to hurt anyone, but I may not be able to control myself for a little while.” Marco could hear the strain to remain calm in his voice. “So, I'm leaving for a bit.”

“Fine,” Marco said agreeably, feeling a rush of relief. It actually was a good idea, and a large part of him was proud of Ace for recognizing his need to escape rather than do something he'd later come to (possibly?) regret. “But I'm coming with you.”

“The hell you are!”

“Ace, I didn't know exactly what Thatch was up to until he had already signalled Curiel to come over with the paint.” Marco folded his arms and stared down the younger man. “You're right, I should have stopped it. I felt it was a poor choice of pranks once I saw what they were up to but I failed to stop them and that's on me. But I'm not letting you race off in this kind of mood and let you get into trouble just because your temper is set to a hair-trigger right now.”

Ace shrugged. “Do whatever the hell you want, Marco,” he said, and this time, a thread of exhaustion and sadness wound its way around his words. “Everyone always does. You're no different.”

Marco didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he transformed quickly, flying to his father to let him know what was happening, and then to his room to grab his travel pack which he always kept ready. Then he flew back out to where Ace had already jumped down to the Striker and was tying his bag inside the fire-proof compartment he'd built into the nose.

With barely a glance above him, Ace called on his powers, sending all the thrust he could muster to his feet and charging up the specially-built engine. Striker roared in response and took off with a speed most boats could never even attempt, nor their captains even consider.

Overhead, Marco spread his wings and followed, determined to both not let Ace get away from him, and to find out a way to resolve everything so they could come home and Ace and Thatch could make up.

 

TBC...

 


	5. Sick Days

**Title:** Sick Days

 **Author:** Stormy1x2

 **Word Count:** 4134

 **Summary:** Someone requested a sick Ace, but I can't remember who! Hope this is what you wanted!

 **Notes:** More of my personal headcanons. Believe or do not believe, there is no try-- nah, doesn't work as well.

 

O0o

Sick Days

o0o

 

Ace had been sick for three days before anyone had noticed. Thatch would eventually try to claim blame for being too caught up in trying out some new recipe's from the Fishman Candy Factory he'd been given from Jimbei while training new cooks at the same time which in itself was a recipe for disaster. Haruta hadn't left Navigation in days, the New World apparently trying for a new record in long-term strange weather phenomena, and Izou had been tasked with setting his entire division on laundry duty that week which meant directly supervising to ensure his division made sure everything was done to his very exacting standards.

 

Even Marco hadn't noticed. He'd been swamped with reports from both the first and second division's recent missions, and had accepted Ace's on top of everyone else's with a quick 'thank you' before hurrying off to navigation to verify yet another report. The exchange between him and the fire-starter had been so quick, he hadn't really even looked at the teen beyond a quick smile-to-smile.

 

It was Kingdew who had settled down at the commanders table, looked around, and commented that it was the third day he hadn't seen Ace at dinner. That quickly got everyone's attention.

 

“What do you mean, three days?” Marco asked, the bleary-eyed haze he'd been slowly sinking into suddenly evaporating and a new tension starting to build.

 

“He has been absent from the commanders table for three days,” Kingdew said stiffly. “I do not know what other meaning is to be derived from this.”

 

“Has he been to lunch or breakfast?” Izou asked, furrowing his brow, obviously trying to remember. “I know I've missed a few myself, but Gerkin _will_ mix whites and colors and it's just easier to stay there and help him correct it before it goes into the wash...”

 

Thatch shrugged, looking concerned. “I have new trainee's in the kitchen,” he said, rubbing the side of his nose. “I haven't had a full meal out here for a week, and won't for at least one more.” He'd been out long enough each meal to say hi and be sociable before his inner warning system detected a newbie trying to resort his pots and pans or something even worse.

 

Marco nodded and stood up, tossing his napkin to the table. “I'll go check it out. Thatch, keep an eye on your newbies. Kingdew, you done?”

 

The muscle man dabbed his lips with his own napkin before standing up. “I am ready to accompany you, Marco.”

 

“Good.”

 

Izou called out to them as they left. “Let me know how he is! And if we have to alert medical!”

 

Which brought up every head in the galley, including members of Ace's division who heard Izou, noted that Ace was the only commander missing, and instantly broke out in a flurry of calls and questions. Half of the men rose to their feet as if to accompany Marco, and only Vista's pull of his sword as a warning made them all sit back down.

 

Marco rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Izou, you started this, you explain. And keep everyone away. If nothing's wrong, Ace will be annoyed at the crowding.” And an annoyed Ace tended to result in more people than usual attending the infirmary for burn cream.

 

They didn't run to Ace's room, but it was fair to say they didn't dawdle either. Marco paused outside of Ace's door and rapped the Adam's Wood with his knuckles. Kingdew grunted when there was no response.

 

Marco knocked again. “Ace, yoi. You awake in there?”

 

Still no response. Marco exchanged a look of concern with Kingdew and then pulled out his key. Being the second in command meant he had a master key that unlocked every door on the Moby Dick. It was frequently being stolen by Thatch and Haruta for prank-playing, but it now served for one of its true purposes. Marco unlocked the door and gently pushed the door open.

 

It was dark in the room, the curtains having been drawn, but there was still enough light filtering through the material to allow Marco and Kingdew to see a huddled mass in the middle of Ace's bed. Kingdew closed the door as Marco moved closer. “Ace?”

 

Ace didn't reply. Kingdew frowned. “I do not like the sound of his breathing, Marco.”

 

Marco paused and could faintly hear panting breaths being muffled by the blanket. He reached out and carefully pulled them back. His eyes widened and then narrowed in concern.

 

Ace was indeed panting for air like he couldn't get enough of it into his lungs. His body was shaking almost violently, curled up on his side with one arm was wrapped around his waist. Marco put his hand to Ace's forehead – he had a rough idea of what to expect from Ace's normal body temp, in that it was usually ten degrees higher than a normal persons. But he jerked his hand back in shock. “Shit!”

 

“His fever is that high?” Kingdew asked, having retrieved a towel and reaching to blot some of the sweat off his comrade's face, only to blink as he saw there was none. “Marco?”

 

“He's _cold,_ ” Marco snapped, whirling around. “I'm calling the infirmary – Kingdew, wrap him up and bring him down now.”

 

In the hallway that led to the commander quarters, there was a Den Den Mushi that was rigged to only reach Whitebeard's chair, Navigation, and the infirmary, depending on which button you pressed. Forget Izou - Marco didn't waste any time calling down to Whiskey and her nursing team directly. When he hung up, Kingdew was in the hallway behind him, Ace bundled up in blankets and carefully cradled in his arms. The fire-user was still panting, his face pale enough that his freckles stood out starkly. His lips looked vaguely purple and the fingernails of the hand dangling limply out of the blankets had a definite blue tinge to them.

 

Marco swore and led the way. Kingdew followed close behind. “What could have happened three days ago to cause this?” the larger man asked, even as they moved swiftly through the ship. As they went, they caught the attention of other crew members who saw Ace's condition and fell silent in shock. There was a line forming that was following them. “Or could this be a strange New World disease?”

 

“If it is, it's one I don't know about,” Marco said roughly. He skipped the stairs entirely, leaping to the lower level, Kingdew following suit. “I'd bet more on three days ago when he came back from his mission, yoi. Something must have happened that he missed. That _we_ missed.” He pushed the infirmary doors open.

 

Whiskey Knight was waiting for them by one of the beds. There was a heating pad draped over it, and Marco breathed a sigh of relief. Stepping out of the way, Kingdew moved forward and set their second commander down on the bed, discarding the blankets on to the floor. Whiskey followed up with a sheet, laying it over top of him.

 

“Shit, you weren't kidding when you said he was cold,” Whiskey muttered, feeling Ace's forehead and motioning for June and July to bring their tray of instruments forwards. The younger twin took the wrapping off a fresh thermometer and carefully inserted it into Ace's mouth under his tongue while July hooked up a blood pressure cuff. Without wasting time, Whiskey already had Ace's other arm tied with a rubber tube and was quickly and efficiently drawing vials of blood. “June, after you get his temp, do a visual check for any wounds, puncture marks or any bruising. Marco, I need you to help her turn him over so they can check his other side.”

 

“What are you thinking?” Marco asked, staring at his unmoving little brother.

 

“Anything is up in the air right now, but poison or something along those lines is more likely,” Whiskey replied briskly. “I checked him out myself when he came back from his mission three days ago and he was absolutely fine, which potentially leaves out physical injury. He didn't report an encounter with a devil fruit user, did he?”

 

Marco shook his head. He'd go over Ace's report again just in case but he would have remembered a mention of any devil fruits beside Ace's own being involved.

 

“I know a lot of strange things happen on the Grand Line, especially in the New World, but there's always a cause, no matter how weird.” Whiskey filled the last vial and handed it off to July who swapped Ace's blood pressure readings for it. She scanned the sheet and frowned. “BP's dangerously down. If it were anyone else, that would definitely be the cause of the cold and clammy skin, but Ace is a fire logia – his powers should keep him warm regardless. But it also possibly explains why he's unconscious.”

 

June motioned for Marco to help her turn Ace on his side before resuming her scan of Ace's body. She was running her fingers over his muscles and bones, trying to check every inch of skin for absolutely anything that could explain Ace's condition. Marco found himself following along, tracing Ace's skin with his own eyes--” Whiskey?”

 

Whiskey looked up, hearing the breathlessness in June's voice. “What did you find?”

 

“This scrape on the lower end of his left scapula – there's a very small puncture mark!” the nurse cried out, spreading her fingers below and around to enclose the area and show precisely what she had found.

 

Whiskey whipped out a magnifying glass and a small pair of tweezers from her lab coat. “Let me see.”

 

Marco stepped back next to Kingdew after helping turn Ace completely on to his stomach. June palpated the area carefully, gently pushing at the skin and muscle to reveal the miniscule wound.

 

“What are you doing?” Kingdew asked.

 

“Trying to see if there's anything in there,” Whiskey muttered under her breath. “S'like popping a zit – by gently squeezing the area we can see if any fluid or foreign objects are in there and possibly push them out.”

 

“I see something,” June breathed. “That shine, briefly?”

 

“I see it.” Whiskey moved in with her tweezers and attempted to grab whatever it was they had found. “If I can't get it, we may have to open the wound up a bit and flush it out but I'd rather not—ah-HA!” She pulled back and withdrew a tiny sliver, only a few millimetres in length and thickness, reaching over to drop it into a shallow, glass bowl. It glinted at them, reflecting the overhead lights. June immediately cleaned the wound with a disinfectant-soaked cloth.

 

“What is it?” Marco asked.

 

“Can't tell. Gotta run some tests, and just in case that's not what we were looking for, I want you to keep checking, June; see if any of his other scrapes from before have any surprises in them. July's doing the blood tests, so I'll start on this little widget and call Biggie while I'm at it.”

 

“You sound like you have an idea, though,” Kingdew said slowly, watching her carefully.

 

Whiskey shrugged. “I have a couple of ideas but nothing concrete yet. But in the meantime, I'll get him started on oxygen and give him a shot of corticosteroids and we'll see if that helps ease his breathing while we figure this out. June?”

 

The nurse _h'mm'd_ but didn't look up from her ongoing scan.

 

“When you're done, get those blankets back up and maybe a hot water bottle or two. Until his pilot light gets re-lit, we need to help him stay warm.”

 

“Aye aye.”

 

Marco and Kingdew were gently but firmly pushed out of the infirmary at that point, and they turned to see a hallway full of crew members looking anxious and worried. Leading the pack was Thatch and Jozu.

 

Thatch stepped forward, forehead creased with concern. “How is he?”

 

“Not so good,” Marco said quietly. “He's having trouble breathing and his skin was so cold.”

 

“Cold?” Thatch's eyes widened. “But he's made of fire!”

 

“I know,” Marco said, and he lightly shuddered. “He's really sick, Thatch.”

 

Thatch's arm wrapped around the first division commander and he led him to a seat. Kingdew nodded at them. “I'll go and update Oyaji.”

 

“Thanks, Kingdew,” Marco mumbled. “Thatch...”

 

“He'll be okay, Marco,” Thatch said firmly. “This is Ace, we're talking about.”

 

“I know. But he was so cold.” Marco shook his head. “I've never felt his skin be so cold before.”

 

Jozu sat down on the other side of him. “Let us not borrow trouble,” he said roughly. “We will wait and see what Whiskey tells us. Don't get ahead of ourselves. You know this, Marco.”

 

Marco did. But Ace was their newest, littlest brother, and it had been thrust upon Marco to bond with the fire brat in the first place, to help him open up to the idea of joining the crew. He didn't regret a single moment of it, but it was playing havoc with his perspective – in that he was finding it hard to keep any. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I know, Joz. I know.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

It was over an hour before the infirmary doors opened and Whiskey stepped out, one hand rubbing her temples. “Marco, I need to speak with you.”

 

There was still quite a crowd in the waiting area, and Thatch was at the head of it. He jumped up, bypassed Jozu, and came to a stop next to the first division commander. “I wanna see him.”

 

“Later, Thatch,” Whiskey said firmly. “I need to see Marco, First Mate of the Moby Dick, not friend and first division commander.”

 

Thatch paused and blinked at that. Marco nodded and followed her inside, letting the doors fall closed behind him. The doctor led the way to Ace's bed and Marco took a close look at his littlest brother. The time outside had helped him regain his emotional distance and he was able to look at Ace calmly and analytically.

 

Ace was still unconscious, on his back with his head turned to the side. The oxygen mask was still in place, but his lips had lost that purplish look, and a quick glance at his hands showed the nail beds back to their normal flesh tones. Marco reached out and gently took Ace's hand, giving him a small encouraging squeeze and sighed in relief at the feel of warmth returning to the fire user's body. His temperature wasn't as high as it normally was, but anything was an improvement over the cold clamminess of earlier. “He looks better.”

 

“It helped once we figured out a few things and I gave him a dose of epinephrin.” Whiskey moved them a little bit away so they wouldn't disturb Ace and flipped a few sheets on the clipboard she carried. “It was easy to figure out what that little speck of debris was once I got it under a proper microscope.”

 

Marco raised an eyebrow.

 

“Kairouseki fragment.”

 

“Kairouseki fragment?” Marco found himself echoing. “That can't be right. That shard was tiny! How could something that small do _that_ \- “ he pointed at Ace lying still and pale on the bed, “ - to _him_? He's got the constitution of a fucking Yagara bull!”

 

Whiskey snorted. “True that,” she agreed. “But there's an additional complication, Marco. Ace isn't just weakened by seastone because he's a Devil Fruit user.” She sighed and shook her head. “The poor bastard is also _allergic_ to it.”

 

Marco blinked as he took that in. “What... allergic? As in, even if he didn't have a Devil Fruit, he'd-”

 

“--Still have a nasty reaction to it because of his allergy,” Whiskey finished. “You got it, boss.”

 

“Surely he's been exposed to it before?”

 

Whiskey shrugged. “Not according to Biggie. And when Ace is up and running, I want to do a few tests on him to determine the full severity of his reaction.”

 

Marco's eyes swung back to the fire-user. “Wasn't this reaction severe enough?”

 

“It was, but it was a different circumstance.” Whiskey tapped her pen on the clipboard. “He had a fragment stuck in his body, contaminating his blood stream. That blood gets pumped throughout his entire body but the real danger is when it goes through the heart. There might have even been kairouseki dust particles that were actually swept into the blood stream – we don't know right now. June and July are running tests on his blood right now – thankfully Biggie gave me Ace's health records, so we have a baseline. It took time to circulate but once it did, it hit him pretty damn hard, as we can see.”

 

The first division commander didn't know what to think. A Devil Fruit user, also allergic to kairouseki. He didn't even know this was a possibility, and he voiced that thought to Whiskey. She responded by throwing her pen at his chest.

 

“If it exists out there, there's someone who's allergic to it,” she snapped. “Truth be told, Ace is likely allergic to just one of the minerals that make up kairouseki. There are only six minerals that modern science knows of, and we already tested for the two most common – calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate, and he didn't have a reaction to those. There's also acuminite but that's so rare the only other place it can be found is in small deposits of cryolite in the far ends of North Blue. We can't even test for it – there's no samples available anywhere in the Grand Line for a comparison. The other minerals are only found in seastone itself so there's no point in testing those.”

 

Marco nodded. “What can we do then? If Ace is ever caught off-guard and some Marines slap some cuffs on him--”

 

“That's why I want to do proper testing with him once he's in the clear,” Whiskey said calmly. “In the case of kairouseki bullets or the gods forbid, kairouseki cannonballs, swords or whatever else they like to throw at us, I'm going to recommend Ace keep a capped needle of epinephrin on him. Possibly two.”

 

“What's that?”

 

“Basically? It's adrenaline. It helps open up the airways and reduce other symptoms of allergic reactions.” Whiskey shrugged. “It's not unusual. There are at least one hundred and forty-seven people on the Moby Dick right now who carry one. He wouldn't be the only one.”

 

This was definitely news to Marco. “You mean other people have these severe allergies?”

 

Whiskey looked exasperated. “Allergies are a fairly common ailment, commander. Actually a lot of the crew who have them brought their own needles along when they joined – I just provide them with re-filling if they get used, or replacing if they expire. It's not necessarily a death sentence, you know. The guys who have them are fully aware what their allergies are and are pretty good at limiting their exposure.”

 

“But I didn't know,” Marco said with a frown. He didn't like not knowing about life threatening situations brought on by every day life. “And I should know if my brothers could be seriously harmed by something completely unrelated to a life of piracy. I'd like a list of all crew members who have allergies serious enough to require those needles, Whiskey, as well as what they're allergic to. I want all of our commanders to be informed as well.”

 

Whiskey shrugged again. “I'll have it for you by the end of the day.”

 

“Thank you.” Marco folded his arms and looked back at Ace. The fiery teen was shifting slightly, his fingers clenching the sheets. “I think he's waking up.”

 

o0o  
  


Ace groaned as awareness slowly came back to him. His head was pounding, his eyelids seemed to be glued shut, his throat was as dry as the Alabastan desert and there was something sticking to his face. He didn't bother expending energy trying to open his eyes and focused on moving his hand to his face. Halfway there, something gripped his wrist gently, halting his slow progression and a whine escaped his throat.

 

“Easy, Ace. Just relax.”

 

Whiskey's voice. Ace decided now was a good time to try and blink.

 

It didn't work.

 

“Whaa's omma f'ss?” he slurred out. There was a low chuckle near his other ear. It sounded familiar.

 

“It's an oxygen mask, Ace. I'm gonna take it off for a minute but I'll be putting it back on after I check you.”

 

Ace waited, feeling almost like he was floating as something twisted and wiggled by his ear, and then the thing – _mask_ – was pulled away. “Tha's....”

 

“Ace, yoi, can you open your eyes?”

 

That was definitely Marco. Ace frowned and tried. A second later he slammed them shut again, letting out a whimper before he could stop himself. Bright lights hurt!

 

“Try again, Ace,” said Whiskey. “I've lowered the lights for you. It shouldn't hurt.”

 

Ace bit his lip and then forced his eyes open again. Hazy shapes wavered in front of him, slowly solidifying into two person-shaped smears of color. “S'all b'urry.”

 

“You'll probably be a little disoriented for a while, Ace,” Whiskey said soothingly. “You had a bad allergic reaction and it took three days for anyone to find out.”

 

“Which will never happen again,” said the Marco-shaped blur. “I'll be speaking to Oyaji about daily check-in's and follow-ups. I can't believe this happened over such a--” he cut himself off.

 

Ace blinked. “Wha' happen'?” he asked. His brain felt as fuzzy as his tongue. All he could remember was feeling tired and dizzy and feeling like his narcolepsy had been about to kick in. He'd gone to bed, and woke up apparently in the infirmary. “'M no'llergic... 'm'I?”

 

“Actually, you are allergic to seastone,” Whiskey said gently, feeling Ace's forehead and nodding at the temperature she obviously felt and approved of. “And since we had no idea, it took three days to get you help.”

 

There was a low growl from the other side of the bed. Ace flicked his eyes over, unable to summon the energy to move his entire head. Marco was frowning at him.

 

Was Marco angry at him? “Dinn'it know,” he mumbled, trying to shift himself to a sitting position, but his muscles felt weak and drained, like he was actually still in the ocean and not in a hospital bed. “M'rco, I's tired... wenna'sleep.... dinn'it know, pr'miss--”

 

“Easy, Ace,” Marco said, laying a hand gently across Ace's mouth to stop him, while his other hand pushed lightly at Ace's chest to make him stop moving. “I know, yoi. This wasn't your fault. No one knew you were allergic, especially you, and there was no reason for you to suspect being tired was anything other than your narcolepsy. I'm not mad at you, yoi.”

 

“Y'look mad.”

 

“I'm upset,” Marco corrected him, sitting down on the chair at Ace's head. “Because it never occurred to me that one of my brothers could go missing for three days while on board the ship, undergoing a medical emergency, and no one would even have a clue it was happening. It's scary, yoi.” He smiled at Ace's hazy expression. “But in a strange way, it's a good thing it happened to you.”

 

Ace felt vaguely that he should be offended by that. “Why?”

 

“Because now something will be done,” Marco replied. “I'm calling a meeting this afternoon for all commanders and Oyaji plus the medical staff. Everyone is going to be briefed on our family members who have potentially life-threatening issues and how to handle them. I am also going to ask for suggestions on a daily check-in – I don't want anyone suffering like you did before they can get medical help.”

 

“Dinn't suffer,” Ace yawned. “Jus' fel' sleepy...” He yawned again, his eyes drifting shut.

 

“And there's another reason there's a good thing this happened to you and not one of our other brothers or sisters.”

 

“Hmmm?” Ace raised one lid, gazing blearily at the commander.

 

Marco smiled and rested his hand on Ace's head for a moment before bending down and pressing his own forehead to it. “Because you're one tough son of a bitch, Portgas D Ace, and if anyone could survive a medical emergency on their own, it's definitely you.”

 

Ace tried to smirk but he was falling asleep and his eyes were already closed as Marco began to pull away. “M'mudder' s'notta bitch,” he complained softly, and then he was out like a light, gentle snores escaping him with each breath.

 

Marco laughed quietly, and nodded to Whiskey who went off to prepare for that afternoon's meeting. In the meantime, he had a hallway full of brothers to inform that their youngest was going to be just fine.

 

 

O0o

End

o0o

 

Feedback pretty please! It's nutritious AND delicious!


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** Initiation Oops - Chapter 2/3

**Author:** Stormy1x2

 **Notes:** So I thought it would be a 2-shot. I was wrong. I often am. So it's now a 3-shot. Seriously, it was getting longer and longer and suddenly I had the perfect stopping point (you'll see it when you read it) and BANG-BOOM, we have an expansion in the chapter numbers.

 

....I am sure, many of you are angry about this. I know how much you wanted this to be short and sweet and to end right away. _*winks*_

 

_Initiation Oops_

 

By the time Marco reached the outcropping of rocks Ace had aimed for, the fiery teen had already slid his Striker onto the beach and was off in the forest. The shoal was too small to maintain its own magnetic field and thus wasn't a proper island, but it was still big enough to host a few animals that swam from outcropping to outcropping to eat the berries that grew there. Having been there before, Marco – and Ace as well – knew that there were large boars that regularly swam there that time of year. No doubt Ace was looking for a bedtime snack to make up for the meal he'd been unable to finish.

 

Marco landed and transformed. He knew that Ace liked to sleep by or inside of Striker (the interior of the sleekly-designed boat was hollow for that reason) but according to the navigators, it was supposed to be a calm and balmy night. He decided to gather some rocks for a fire pit in case Ace managed to find a boar, or so he could roast any fish he'd have to catch for himself if Ace decided to just roast it in the woods to be contrary. There was a nice pile of driftwood nearby that would do nicely.

 

He had a nice fire going and was idly watching the water when Ace came out of the trees, dragging a large male specimen behind him. Marco noted the slit throat and the lack of any burn marks – Ace must have decided to work off some steam physically. He almost never used his knife – said the knife had a purpose and he wasn't about to use it for just anything. But to use it on the boar?

 

“Is that the knife's purpose?” he asked, jerking his thumb at the boar Ace had set on the sand.

 

“What?” Ace still looked and sounded grumpy as hell, but at least he had responded.

 

Marco was about to repeat himself when he saw Ace pull a tiny pocketknife out of his pants and start to dice up the boar in quick, familiar movements. “Never mind. I thought you used your dagger.”

 

Ace paused and looked at him, anger giving way to confusion. His hand automatically drifted to the hilt of his knife, and then his eyes narrowed. Shaking his head, Ace went back to carving up the boar, stabbing it through with a pole, and suspending it over the fire, much the way you'd cook a freshly-caught fish. “No. Told you, my dagger has one purpose and that's not it.”

 

“So what is it?”

 

Ace paused again and glared at him this time. “None of your business,” he snapped.

 

Marco held up his hands in supplication, and dropped the subject. He watched silently as Ace expertly seasoned the huge slabs of pork with a small packet he brought out of his pouch before turning it to get the other side and then carefully searing it with his flames. Once done, Ace set to methodically eating every last bit – except for a smaller slab he shoved at Marco. Marco almost dropped it in his surprise. “For me?”

 

“No, for the idiot behind you,” Ace grumbled, continuing to shovel meat into his mouth. When he was done, he stood up, stretched and then walked to the ocean to rinse his hands and mouth. After that, he headed for the small cliffs that lined one side of the beach. Once there, he began to throw punches at the rock.

 

Marco figured he was still working off some steam, and so he finished up the pork Ace had given him, a small smile escaping as he did so. Even when angry, Ace was still looking out for his brothers. Marco could have easily caught something for himself, but Ace had made sure to leave something behind for him. This was a very good sign. Marco finished off his share of the food and then turned to see if Ace was nearly done. His eyes widened as he took in what his hot-headed brother was doing.

 

Ace was about five meters into the cliff now, having reduced the rest of it to rubble using nothing but his bare hands – literally. His fruit powers weren't activated and there was no haki usage that Marco could detect. And _that_ was what had him gaping.

 

What Ace was doing wasn't that uncommon, particularly in the New World. Pirates routinely used haki, whether visible or not, to enhance their own natural strength. And while Ace was always a physical monster, Marco had assumed, like most of the Whitebeards, that the teen was using haki, even if subconsciously, to enhance his power and protect himself.

 

Here, Ace was proving that was not the case. If the young man were using any amount of haki, even low enough that Marco would have trouble detecting, it would protect himself, first and foremost. The crimson streams winding their way down Ace's arms as he continued to pummel his broken and bleeding hands into reluctantly-yielding rock was proof enough of that.

 

Maro thought about saying something, but the look on Ace's face told him he wouldn't exactly be welcome at the moment. With a quiet sigh, Marco decided to get out the med kit he always kept in his travel bag (not necessarily for himself, but he didn't trust his brothers as far as he could throw them with their _own_ health) and prepare what he'd need to help the flame-brain clean and treat his hands.

 

It took nearly an hour before the hot-head finally collapsed to his knees, steaming piles of rock and rubble nearly surrounding him. Half of the cliff-face had been destroyed, turned to gravel and bits of shale, dust drifting out to sea on the evening breeze. Ace sat there long enough to make Marco think that he'd actually fallen asleep rather than make a conscious decision to stop, but before he could move, the young man slowly pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the ocean.

 

Marco rolled his eyes and followed him – just in time to catch Ace by his belt loops before he could fall face-first into the water. “Trying to commit suicide, are we yoi?”

 

Ace managed to lift his head long enough to give him an unamused yet extremely tired glare. “Not this time.”

 

Something cold materialized into Marco's stomach but Ace was already on his knees, scooping water with damaged hands and trying to rinse himself off. All he was really doing was turning the dust and debris to mud. Setting Ace's words aside, he gave a deep sigh. “Look, can I help you? 'Cause if I don't, you're gonna be at this all night – or at least until you pass out and drown.”

 

Ace shot him another glare. “What do you mean?”

 

Marco smirked. “Ever wondered what it would be like to be a tea bag?”

 

o0o

 

On the Moby Dick, Haruta and Thatch had apologized to their father for causing such a disruption and then had continued on to confess what they had done in detail. Curiel and Bay had spoken up as well, and Bay was lucky that Whiskey was still off on Moby 2, taking care of an illness that had spread across two divisions. The head of the infirmary would have her cleaning bedpans with a toothbrush for a month solid for messing with a patient's meds, particularly Ace's.

 

Lord knew the kid had trust issues before all this shit hit the fan.

 

Whitebeard sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, and then looked sadly at his sons. “I am disappointed, my children.”

 

Thatch and Haruta both shuddered at those words, and Bay clenched her fists, her face pale – the same paleness it had been since Ace's breakdown in the galley.

 

Thatch stepped forward. “Oyaji... the whole thing was my idea. It was meant to be a simple prank, but I didn't think it through, obviously. Haruta, Rakuyo, Curiel, Bay... they just helped me out. I came up with the whole thing, and I take full responsibility for it.” He kept his head high, staring his father straight in the eyes.

 

Whitebeard watched him for another minute, before he let a small smile appear on his face. “And that is why, even though I am disappointed, I am still proud of you all.” He clanked his bisento on the deck once, to make a point. All heads on deck turned towards him. “I have always allowed you to play your pranks and games with impunity, because they were in fact playful, and not meant with any maliciousness. But a tattoo is something we Whitebeards take very seriously. We are angered when others attempt to defile our flag, or demean the tattoos my children wear as a measure of protection. They are symbols of family, that we are not alone, and that we belong to each other.”

 

He cast his gaze back down at Thatch and Haruta, the younger of the two shedding quiet tears; at Bay, who looked so filled with self-disgust; at Curiel and Rakuyo who had knelt upon confessing and had yet to raise their eyes off the deck in shame. “I do not wish to put an end to something that ultimately brings joy and laughter to the ship. However, I do hope that such jokes will be thought out with a bit more care regarding tactics and targets.” He turned to Bay with a serious expression. “And I never again wish to hear of any of my family's medical issues being used as a way to enable them.”

 

Bay squeezed her eyes shut, nodding once. He was convinced she had learned her lesson.

 

“I forgive you, my sons, my daughter,” he said gently, and watched as they slowly raised their heads until they stood like Thatch, waiting for their final judgement. “But I am not the one you hurt. It is Ace to whom you must apologize, and to him you must make reparations.”

 

Thatch nodded soberly. “We will, Oyaji. Whatever it takes.”

 

 

o0o

 

Marco felt relief rush through him as Ace finally gave in and let out a reluctant laugh at the absurdity of what they had done. Marco had given Ace rope to tie his arms to his feet, and had then transformed into his phoenix form, flown out over the water, and dipped Ace into the ocean like a human tea bag.

 

The curses and swears leaving the fire user would have set Fossa's hair on fire, easily outstripping the shipwright's foul mouth by leagues.

 

“I can't believe you just did that,” Ace said, shaking his head as he allowed Marco to wrap up his hands. “I can't believe I just _let_ you do that.”

 

“I know I had fun,” Marco said lightly, focusing on tying off the bandages of Ace's right hand, and moving to the left to check for any leftover debris. “Though I could have done without the splashing.”

 

“Suck it up. You got splashed. I got dunked. Not the same.” Ace rolled his eyes, but he had greatly calmed down from his earlier anger. Marco felt it boded well. The young man sighed and sent a very small smile in Marco's direction. It was a pale shade of his normal grins that seemed to exceed the limits of the human face, but Marco wasn't going to complain.“Thanks.”

 

Marco had just turned back to the med kit and glanced up from unwinding a fresh roll of wraps. “For what?”

 

Ace sighed, and brought his bandaged hand up to his face, hiding his eyes from the commander. “For not being.... you.”

 

Marco blinked. “Come again?” The fire user sighed again and lowered his hand after a few minutes, but this time Marco could see traces of dampness in the young man's eyes, and concern warred with alarm. “Ace?”

 

Ace shrugged, obviously not wanting to expand on his words.

 

Marco deliberated for a few minutes before choosing his words carefully. “I'm not going to force you to tell me anything,” he said slowly, “But it will help you feel better if you get some of it off your chest. I'm here right now. You can use me as a sounding board or a punching bag.” He shrugged and gave Ace a small smile of his own. “I've done it before, willingly, and I've survived.”

 

“Doesn't that just make me sound sane,” Ace snorted, sending him a sharp look.

 

“What did you mean by not being me?” the first commander pressed.

 

There was silence for a few more minutes. Marco waited it out by grabbing a few sticks from the side pile Ace had made, and built up the fire, grinning when it flared once and began to burn at a high temp – a sure sign of Ace giving it a little boost.

 

He was just contemplating what to do about bedtime – he had his pack but it had been some time since he'd camped outdoors without a sleeping bag and he wasn't looking forward to sand in uncomfortable places – when Ace sighed. “I figured you were coming after me to lecture me, at the very least,” he muttered at last, glaring at the fire. “Tell me about how immature I was being over a prank, or yell at me for leaving the Moby without permission or basically just--”

 

“--acting like a commander?” Marco finished with a wry look. Ace nodded, looking hesitant yet at the same time defiant, and Marco didn't blame him. Everyone needed a time to vent now and then, and this was one case where Marco figured it was completely warranted. He reached out, slowly, in case Ace didn't want to be touched, and when there was no opposition, he gently squeezed the firebrand's shoulder. “I figured. Ace, you had every right to feel upset and need some space. I told you – I'm not here to yell. I'm here to watch out for you. Maybe to try and make up for the way I failed to watch out for you earlier.” Ace looked up at that, and Marco nodded. “I told you, I should have stepped in the minute I knew what was going on, but I didn't. That's my fault.”

 

There was a long pause. “...Did you know about the drugs?” Ace asked quietly.

 

Marco immediately shook his head. “I knew that Bay was involved, but so were half a dozen others, and I never knew what they were doing. Not until you fell asleep at the table and they began.” He looked at Ace firmly. “I swear, if I had known they were going to do that, I would have kicked their asses. You don't mess around with people's medical issues.”

 

Raw pain was easy to read on Ace's face as Marco reiterated what had been done to him, but he nodded at Marco's vow, and stayed quiet for a few minutes. Marco busied himself with tearing the plastic off more bandage wrapping while Ace thought about Marco's words. After a few more minutes, Ace spoke up.

 

“It hurt,” Ace said, very, very softly, and Marco froze. “What they did. It hurt. I...” Ace shook his head slowly, staring at the fire that still burned. “I almost forgot what that felt like. To be hurt by people you--” he stopped himself, and looked at his hand, still waiting to be wrapped. “I don't know if you know this, but I don't trust that easily.”

 

“I know,” Marco said, just as softly, not wanting to scare Ace away from talking. He could have said something about the entire ship getting the idea via one hundred days of going Ace-fishing, but that would derail the conversation and aside from wanting Ace to give his feelings actual words, Marco wanted to know more about his little brother.

 

“Losing him....” Ace brought his wrapped hand up and gripped his arm where the x'd out 'S' was once again visible. “It hurt so much... I'd never felt pain like that, not even when....” He exhaled, and his fingers tightened over his tattoo, digging into his skin. “Seeing his mark gone, it felt like a punch to the stomach. Like I was losing him all over again.”

 

Marco pulled Ace's left hand gently towards himself and began winding the bandages carefully around his fingers. “May I ask who he was?” he asked quietly, wanting to know, to see the whole picture so he could truly comprehend what his brother was going through. He couldn't do that without all of the variables.

 

Ace cleared his throat. “He was my other brother. Sabo. Me and Luffy's brother.” Ace squeezed his eyes shut. “He was killed when we were ten years old.”

 

And Marco watched with mingled shock and horror as Portgas D Ace bit his lip hard enough to let blood stream down his chin, rather then give voice to the grief welling up within.

 

o0o

 

end part 2

 

 

See you in part 3. Unless I finish another one-shot, in which case I may post that first. Otherwise, you may not see anything new from me in this story until 2017. :)


	7. Dear Mr Phoenix

 

Title: Dear Mr Phoenix

Word Count: 1422

Notes: Someone wanted a follow-up to 'Pay It Off' and this was the first thing I thought of. I may have a third portion later, maybe Ace's reaction. We shall see.

 

 

_Dear Mr Phoenix_

 

 

 

 

Marco blinked as Scourge hopped closer to him. “You got mail for Ace there, Scourge?”

 

The large Coo squawked affably (for a grumpy mail bird) and turned to the side, presenting the little carrier bag. Marco handed him a slice of bacon while deftly unlatching the side flap. Inside were two letters. Marco shrugged – perhaps a neighbour or an old friend of Ace's – and was about to slide them into his pocket to deliver to Ace when the Coo pecked his hand.

 

It didn't hurt but it definitely caught Marco's attention. He glanced at the Coo who glared at him and then pecked at the letters in his hand. Marco blinked as he realized one of the letters had his name written in a delicate script on the envelope. Underneath, in tiny, spidery writing, was a short message: ' _To be opened in private, if possible_.'

 

Marco blinked. “For me?”

 

The Coo nodded.

 

After a minute, Marco shrugged and carefully slit the top open with a small dagger. Ace was safely ensconced in the medical bay, courtesy of his most recent mission, wherein the fire brat had used himself as a distraction against an entire squadron of military soldiers in order to save his entire mission team.

 

It had been mostly successful. Ace's flames had kept the majority of the navy at bay and only a few upper ranks who had known armament well enough to equip bows and arrows with it had been an actual threat. Ace had taken an arrow to the back of his thigh, and one to his left buttock which had left him cursing as he had been loaded onto their escape boat, and his men snickering.

 

Marco was just glad that the navy had few people who were capable of applying armament to bullets (much trickier and tougher to do then slower moving and larger arrows). In the meantime, he had time to read his letter before delivering the second to Ace. As Whiskey was likely to keep him overnight, it would give him something to do (though he fully planned on giving Ace the new book he'd just finished, The Twenty Kings. It was a biased history, but he'd added a lot of his own thoughts to the margins and he thought Ace would get a kick out of it, not to mention have fun adding his own comments for them to discuss later. Discovering Ace was a fellow history buff had been a pleasant surprise).

 

Before he could do that, though, he'd better see what this was about. The letter itself was written on cream-coloured paper with violets painted delicately in the corner. The writing was also fairly feminine, but written clearly and by someone with a firm hand.

 

_Dear Mr Phoenix;_

 

_I thought about calling you 'Marco' as Ace does in his letters, but though I feel I've gotten to know you somewhat through Ace's vivid descriptions, I guess we are still strangers, which necessitates a sort of formality, though I do hope we can consider ourselves friends, once you've read what I have to say._

 

_First and foremost: thank you. Thank you for accepting Ace, for making him a part of your family, and for being his friend. I know your father, Captain Whitebeard, is largely responsible for this, but as Ace writes mostly about 'Marco', 'Thatch', 'Izou', and 'Haruta', as well as a dozen others, I thought I should address my thanks to you. If you could pass my thanks along, I would greatly appreciate it._

 

_I have no intention of giving away any of Ace's secrets; they are his to share. I will however say that I was worried about Ace when he left. He's such a sweet boy at heart, but he has had so much hurt and anger in his life for so long. To hear him speak of you and the others with such fondness brought tears to my eyes as well as to the eyes of those here who care about him._

 

_I always believed he would be a captain of his own crew but I had difficulty believing that he would be able to put aside the hurts and troubles of his childhood and allow himself to be part of a family that didn't include myself or a select few people from here in town. That he was able to somehow do so means someone was able to get through that well-deserved defensive shell of his, and I strongly believe it was you, Mr Marco the Phoenix._

 

_He rarely tells us what he's doing, in case you are worried about security. Ace's letters are filled with compliments about 'Thatch's cooking', and 'Haruta's pranks' and 'Izou's marksmanship' but when he talks about you, it's always about the books you share with him, or the museums the two of you explore on new islands. Ace's love of history is both old and new and is a very private part of him that almost no one here knew about save for myself and one other. He's let you in, and I am so happy to read this in his letters. Ace is like a son to me, and every mother loves to read about their child's happiness._

 

_Thank you, Marco, and to the Whitebeards, for giving Ace what he so desperately needed when we were unable to. My other 'son' wants me to tell you that he says 'thank you' as well, and a warning that he will 'kick your butt' if you make Ace sad._

 

_Makino_

 

 

Marco's jaw dropped as he finished reading the letter. He shook his head and then re-read it carefully, taking in every word, feeling his chest flood with warmth.

 

He'd had no idea that by taking an interest in Ace's hobbies he'd be unlocking a part of the kid that had been kept hidden from others. Ace was one of the most popular men on the ship – there had been a out cry when Marco had let it slip that he'd forced Ace to make a decision and Ace still had no idea that dozens of Whitebeards had planted themselves nearby to physically stop Ace from leaving the ship if that was what he had decided to do. Thatch had threatened to serve 'Phoenix souffle' if Ace set one foot off the deck.

 

The little bit at the end – that made him smile widely. Amongst their museum treks and book discussions, Ace had confessed that he had a little brother back home who would have been bored to tears with all the reading Ace was doing these days. The pride in Ace's voice as he spoke of his younger sibling had been utterly precious to hear as he told Marco about Luffy's power and strength and his innate goodness. The more Marco heard, the more Marco had the distinct feeling that Luffy was one of the sole lights in Ace's lonely life prior to joining the Whitebeards.

 

When he wrote back, he'd have to include a letter for Luffy – tell the kid all the amazing things his brother was doing. He had no doubt whatsoever that Ace was barely telling him anything – the teen was tight-lipped when it came to himself, and the fact that his letters to Makino were apparently filled with stories of everyone but himself...well, he'd just have to fix that.

 

He carefully folded the paper up and slid it back into the envelope before placing it in his pocket to answer later. A squawk and a peck to the head made him glare at Scourge. “I'll write back later! But Ace needs to get his letter first, don't you think?”

 

Scourge glared at him and then pecked at Marco's shirt pocket-oh. Marco rolled his eyes and handed the bird the last slice of bacon. Scourge snatched it up and settled down on the railing to savour his treat. Marco glared at him. “You are definitely picking up some bad habits, young Coo. I hope you don't bully poor Miss Makino like that when you deliver the mail.”

 

The Coo sent him a look, and Marco had the feeling if the Coo were capable of it, he'd be rolling his eyes at him.

 

Marco rolled his own eyes instead and left the Coo for better company. Ace was probably tormenting – or being tormented by – Nurse Whiskey, and could use a pick-me-up in the form of mail from his old home.

 

The warmth from his own letter stayed with him the rest of the day.

 

_End_

 

 

Awww, I adore Makino. The episode where she visits Luffy in the mountains and meets the trio for the first time is one of my all-time favorites. The affection in her voice as she calls Luffy's name and he runs to her with zero hesitation just hits all my fuzzy buttons. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Failed Initiation 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to update here, so here's three chapters for the price of one!

“I met Sabo when I was six years old,” Ace said softly. Marco had to strain his ears to hear him clearly. “I was a wild child myself – the bandits had me hunting and foraging for my own food since I was four, as per Gramp's instructions.”

 

“....four years old?” Marco let go of Ace's hands and clenched his fists. “Excuse me?”

 

Ace gave him a small but bitter smile. “Yeah. Wanted to make me a tough marine, which meant growing up sooner rather than later. My first meals consisted of a lot of snails, lizards, boiled insects, and mushrooms – which made for a lot of interesting reactions.”

 

“I'm having my own interesting reaction, yoi,” Marco said roughly, fighting the urge to get names and locations of the people charged with raising Ace as a child. He'd had to eat some pretty damning stuff himself as a kid and later as a sailor, but even he'd been provided with the basics at the tender age of _four_. “How did you not poison yourself?”

 

“Dogra and Magra were Dadan's top lieutenants in her bandit gang. They would periodically check in on me – when they weren't terrified I'd bite them or beat them up.” A chuckle escaped Ace. “Though I'm sure the times I came back hallucinating or puking non-stop made for a few extra nightmares of their own.”

 

“Beat them up? But you said you were fi... never mind,” Marco sighed. “Hallucinations. Fuck, no wonder you have a cast-iron stomach.” He shook his head and motioned for Ace to continue.

 

Ace glanced at the fire and a moment later, it began to burn hotter and stronger. Marco reached for Ace's hand to finish bandaging the last few fingers, while motioning for the teen to continue. “So anyway, I was about six years old when I met Sabo at the edge of the forest. I'd been making my way further and further across the mountain because I wanted to see Grey Terminal. The bandits had told me that was where they got a lot of the stuff they used – pots and pans, brooms and dustpans, extra bed rolls. Everything the people from Edge Town and High Town threw out.”

 

Marco finished bandaging Ace's fingers and began wrapping the rest of his hand. “City dump, yoi?”

 

“More or less. But a city dump with a population living inside it.” Ace watched as Marco finished with his first aid, and took his hand back, flexing his fingers carefully. “Sabo lived in a cave near the edge, between the dump and the mountain.”

 

“Was he your older or younger brother?” Marco asked curiously.

 

“Younger,” Ace sad, smiling sadly. “He didn't know that though. All he knew was that we were both ten. We never shared our birthdays, but there's no way he was older than me due to mine.”

 

Marco raised an eyebrow.

 

Looking somewhat reluctant, Ace clarified. “January first.”

 

Making a mental note to notify Thatch (once the two made up – and they WOULD make up – Thatch would no doubt ensure the Moby Dick saw the first official celebration of their youngest's birthday) Marco nodded. “That would seem confirming.”

 

“Anyway, “Ace continued. “He suggested that we team up.” Marco watched, slightly amused, as Ace's cheeks flushed red. “See, I was, um... acquiring a stockpile of funds so I could buy my future pirate ship--”

 

“You mean you were robbing the city blind, yoi,” Marco cut in with a small smirk.

 

“Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to,” Ace said, waving one bandaged hand airily. “So this scrawny blond kid wearing fancy clothes said he was doing the same thing and that we'd be better off pooling our resources in order to accomplish our mutual goals. At the time, I had no idea what all the fancy talk meant and told him to speak English.”

 

Marco couldn't muffle a laugh at that.

 

“C'mon, I was only six, and my education consisted of stealing, lying, and wilderness survival. I didn't even know how to begin to read at that point – Sabo was the one who taught me, and for a while, Luffy too. I wound up having to fight with Lu until he was thirteen and able to read a basic wanted poster,” Ace grumbled.

 

“How did you two decide you were brothers?” Marco asked.

 

Ace snorted. “Oh, that was a long time in coming. I may have gotten along with Sabo, but I didn't trust him anymore then I trusted the bandits or Gramps. I didn't trust anybody.”

 

Marco couldn't help feeling a pang in his heart at the candid admission. Ace still had trust issues as an adult – to hear that he'd had them at such a tender age was heart-breaking. “How come?” The wary look Ace shot him at that made him hold up a hand in submission. “You don't have to answer anything you don't want to, Ace. You know that. I'm here for you, not to badger you, remember?”

 

After a moment, Ace relaxed, letting out a small sigh as he did so. “Yeah... I know. Thanks, Marco.”

 

Having had his hands released from Marco's tyrannical grip, he picked up a stick and began poking the fire, while Marco packed away the rest of the supplies in the medical kit. Marco assumed Ace would need a moment to decide what he felt comfortable in sharing and would likely reach a decision easier if Marco were preoccupied than if he were staring at him. It only took a moment to wind up the last of the gauze and tuck it back in place with the disinfectant and sterile wraps. Then he closed it up and set it back into the side pouch of his travel pack, ready for use once again.

 

A few moments after that, Ace began speaking again.

 

“When I was four, Gramps... he told me something about my family. Something I didn't want to hear, but for some reason he needed me to know. It hurt.” Ace was choosing his words very carefully, Marco could tell. “And whatever it was he told me, Dadan and her bandits already knew because suddenly, a lot of things I heard them say behind my back or when they thought I wasn't listening began to make a lot more sense.”

 

“What do you mean?” Marco set his travel pack down on the ground and turned his full attention on to the fire-user, sensing this was of serious importance. His inner Phoenix had gone silent, as though it too were listening, and Marco was accustomed to adhering to the Phoenix's ways in these sorts of situations. Whatever Ace was speaking about, it deserved his full attention.

 

“Things like 'devil-child', and 'evil blood', and how Dadan wouldn't really care if one day I went out and somehow didn't come back,” Ace muttered, poking the fire a little harder. “You grow up hearing these things and, well...”

 

“Sooner or later you start believing them,” Marco finished for him, feeling a sense of righteous rage welling up inside him. It was one thing for a man of Ace's age to hear such words and be hard-pressed not to feel hurt, but to a child-- “Ace, do me a favor, yoi?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Never, and I mean _never_ , let me know where those bandits live,” Marco said calmly, heart thudding in his chest. He could feel the Phoenix force inside him trilling with anger. If he didn't know better, he'd almost swear the Phoenix was claiming Ace as her chick, or something. She hadn't gotten this angry on someone’s behalf in a long time, and he had a feeling that it wouldn't bode well for Ace's former caretakers. “I can't guarantee their continued health and survival if you do.”

 

Ace blinked at him, and then let out an honest-to-goodness giggle. “Sure, Marco.”

 

Marco was still dumbstruck over the giggle and the lighter smile that accompanied it, suddenly highlighting just how damn young his littlest brother was.

 

“Anyway, you grow up hearing the people raising you saying these things and you start to think no one would ever really care about you,” Ace continued his story. “So why the hell would Sabo? Hell, even shitty Gramps beat the crap out of me on a monthly basis, calling it training or whatever but was really glorified child abuse – I mean, come on, how many kids do you know that would survive being thrown into a ravine filled with wolves? Or into a tiger pit? Besides me and Luffy, that is.”

 

Ravine? Wolves? _Tigers_? Marco reached one hand up to massage his suddenly aching temples. All this time he'd wanted to known more about Ace, and now he was getting his wish – and was suddenly wishing he could forget it all. Because the minute he got back to the Moby and got his family back on speaking terms, he was simply going to have to recruit a team to go to the East Blue and—and--

 

\--and Ace was waving his hand in his face. “Marco?”

 

“...You know, Ace, I don't care what the hell your Gramps told you about your parents.”

 

Ace looked wary and skittish again. “What do you mean?”

 

Marco sighed and reached out, wrapping an arm around Ace's shoulders and pulling him in for a quick hug. “Because no matter who they were, I'm thankful for them. You had to get your monstrous strength and resilience from them, and because of that, you lived through that nightmare you called a childhood, yoi.”

 

Ace was silent for a moment, before he nudged into Marco's arm briefly, acknowledging the hug and then pulling back a little. Marco let him go. “I... never thought of it that way.”

 

“That's all I can think of right now,” Marco said honestly.

 

Ace was silent for a little while, obviously thinking about Marco's words, and truthfully, Marco was grateful for the break in their conversation. In flying after Ace after Thatch's disastrous attempt at a welcoming prank, he had never imagined getting to learn so much about their newest (and youngest, Marco could never let him stop remembering just how damn young the kid was compared to himself and the other commanders) member, and after this, he was never going to be able to forget.

 

Ace was so young and yet he'd lived through so much, more than many of the Moby Dick crew-mates could say. Marco had seen crew-members come and go, broken by far less than what he'd heard of Ace's story thus far and they hadn't even gotten to the death of his brother, the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to jokes. An abusive Gramps, negligent and abusive (verbally, if not physically) caretakers, no education other than what they could scrounge for themselves, having to hunt for his own food at an age when most kids wouldn't even be allowed to go outside without supervision...

 

Marco ran a hand over his face as he watched Ace add a few more stacks of wood to the fire, and cut another hunk of meat off the boar-carcass. He blinked as Ace handed that to him before grabbing a second, much larger slice for himself. “Thanks, yoi.”

 

“Sure,” Ace said idly before tearing into the food.

 

At least one benefit from their talk – Ace seemed to have calmed down greatly in comparison to the temper he'd been in when he'd left the Moby. The physical exertion had exhausted him, the care Marco had taken in bandaging his wounds (something he felt not many had people had done for him in his life, save for Luffy and perhaps the late Sabo) had soothed the irked edges, and now the food was rounding off the edges of his massive temper that even Marco could admit to being awed by at times. It was Ace's temper that pushed him through one hundred straight days of attacking the World's Strongest Man without fail, but it was the food Thatch had prepared and Marco had given Ace in the end that had broken through what little remained of his fire.

 

Food was probably one of the few sources of comfort he'd had when growing up (well, minus the bits about boiled bugs and snails). Marco smiled and settled back against the rock he'd chosen as his chair, content to let Ace mull over his thoughts before continuing. As he had said continuously since arriving on the little atoll, he was not here to lecture like a commander.

 

He was here to comfort his brother, and when Ace was ready...

 

...he would bring his brother home.

 

 

To be continued....


	9. Failed Initiation 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 5200
> 
> Notes: Izou sorts Thatch out, and Marco continues to work on Ace. Coming close to the end here, people!

 

“What are you up to?”

 

Thatch gave a halfhearted shrug as he pulled another pan of perfectly baked oatmeal-raisin cookies from his own personal baking oven. The galley was staffed and rotated through by his division squads and had thirty industrial-sized ovens taking up the back wall, but Thatch had carved out his own niche in the corner, a hold-out from when he'd been one of a handful of Pop's kids and had made the tiny galley on the ship they'd had before the Moby his own.

 

After moving to the Moby Dick, Thatch had immediately laid claim to a back corner, walling it up with his own cabinets and tables, and refusing access to anyone without explicit permission. His men knew to call over for his attention than to actually set foot past the invisible barrier delineating his space from the rest of the communal galley. Thatch used his personal area and title as Division Commander and Galley Head to invent new recipes and fine-tune old ones – or to churn out the favorite treats and goodies of people he noticed feeling down.

 

....or people he needed to apologize to.

 

“You do know it's almost three in the morning, right?” Izou sighed, and casually stepped into his personal 'kitchen'. Only a few people had blanket permission to do that – Pop's naturally, Marco, Izou, Haruta, Kingdew, Namur, Rakuyo, two of his own division lieutenants that had been with him for nearly a decade, Lucky Roo (the rare times when Shanks visited, much to Marco's detest and chagrin) and most recently, Ace.

 

He had taken a liking to the kid the moment they'd swept him up after his first disastrous battle with Pop's (after taking out Jinbei, which had honestly astounded him). The kid had reminded him of a starved alley cat, slinking around fearfully and looking for food while trying to show the world he absolutely was not hungry at all.

 

Thatch had been horrified to see the kid's ribs start showing up only four days after leaving Medical. He knew of fast metabolisms – he'd seen his fair share on board the Moby – but this was far beyond anything he'd dealt with before. The kid could probably starve to death inside of a couple of weeks with that kind of metabolic rate.

 

That thought reminded him that his prank had been pulled before Ace could eat his dinner. And he couldn't remember if Ace had eaten enough for lunch – hadn't there been a whirlpool emergency around noon he'd rushed out to help with? And then he'd fallen asleep after--

 

Thatch winced at that.

 

“Thatch!”

 

“I hear you, Izou,” he said softly, still staring at the sweet-scented steam rising off the rack of cookies. “I'm not tired.”

 

His best friend sighed, and Thatch blinked as he felt Izou's manicured nails ruffling his hair gently. “Yes, you are.”

 

He shrugged again. “Doesn't mean I can sleep.”

 

He couldn't. Guilt was churning his stomach up and making him feel nauseous. He'd already taken two large doses of medication for it and if he took a third and Whiskey found out (and she would, she sniffed out the crew's personal medication stashes on a regular basis to ensure they weren't misused) she would tie him to a fishing pole and use him as bait for the Sea Kings. He had seen her do it.

 

“I know.” Izou's own voice sounded tired and another wave of guilt wracked through him. “Neither can I.”

 

“You didn't do anything,” Thatch mumbled, leaning into his friend's side.

 

“I could have stopped you.”

 

Thatch shook his head. “No. No, Izou. You don't get to do this.” He turned his head and stared at the other man's tired face. “This was my mistake. I decided on the prank, I planned it out, I recruited the others, I--” His throat closed.

 

Izou tilted his head, eyes staring right at him. “Hmmm?”

 

Thatch honestly thought he was going to throw up. “I--”

 

“Say it, Thatch.” The words were soft, but had the commanding ring of steel behind them.

 

“I drugged his food,” Thatch choked out, squeezing his eyes shut. “I--”

 

This time there was no holding back the nausea and he whirled around, lunging for the empty metal bucket he used to cart ice in and emptied what little he had remaining from dinner into it.

 

Strong but gentle fingers were instantly there, pulling his hair back, rubbing his shoulder. He could hear Izou murmuring softly to him but he couldn't really make out the words passed the blood pounding in his temples.

 

The moment passed and Thatch fell back on his rear. A clean towel was pressed into his hands to wipe his mouth and he felt Izou leave his side for moment, taking the bucket with him. Then he was back, a glass of ice water being handed to him with orders to sip at it, as though Thatch had never puked before and had no idea what to do.

 

“Why are you being so nice to me, Izou?” he asked when he was finally able to choke some water down. “You should be mad at me. Everyone should be mad at me.”

 

“How come?”

 

The gentle patience in Izou's voice nearly undid him. “Because I hurt our nakama. I poisoned him, I poisoned his food. I'm the _cook_ , Izou, I have rules and responsibilities and I--” he stopped himself not wanting to throw up again, even if he deserved it.

 

Izou was stroking his hair again. “So why did you?” Still gentle. Still patient.

 

Thatch shook his head. “That stupid prank... that stupid, foolish, idiotic-- how could I....Fuck!”

 

“Was that all it was?” Izou asked, sounding curious. “Just a prank?”

 

“Huh?” Thatch shook his head, still feeling sick. “You know me, Izou. Stupid pranks are my thing. _Were_ \--” he suddenly corrected himself. “Were my thing.”

 

“So you're going to stop all your pranks because of this?”

 

“Yes.” Thatch felt his voice firm with resolution. “I always knew I'd go too far one day, look what I did, Izou.”

 

Izou hummed again and didn't say anything for a while. Thatch just focused on his friend's presence, thankful, so damn thankful Izou hadn't turned away from him despite his stupidity. Then Izou sighed. “So I guess we'll have to prep the medbay for Marco. Whiskey is certainly going to enjoy that.”

 

Thatch reared up at that. “What? Is Marco sick too? Did I get the drugs into his food?”

 

Izou shook his head. “Nope, relax, Thatch. Marco's fine.” He shrugged. “For now.”

 

Thatch was so tired and so confused. Izou wasn't making any sense to him, which had him wonder if maybe he'd over-dosed on the seasick meds after all. “Izou, I'm exhausted and dizzy, so forgive me, but I don't know what you're talking about.”

 

Izou chuckled and wrapped his arm around Thatch's shoulders, tugging him in for a one-armed hug that Thatch willingly went into, wanting the comfort. “Do you remember why you started playing pranks in the first place?”

 

“To piss him off?”

 

He winced as Izou thumped him lightly on the arm. “No, you idiot.” The word was tinged with affection, the way it always was. “Remember how stressed he was?”

 

Thatch remembered. He remembered all too well. Pops had a crew of over two hundred at that point, and though he was the strongest man in the world, many of his sons were unable to defend themselves with strength that matched Thatch's own division lieutenants, much less a commander. There were only five of them back then, and Marco, as the First Mate, had appointed himself as the protector of everyone but himself. Even when there were no battles, he patrolled the ship relentlessly, worried that one of his weaker siblings would fail to notice a Marine ship in time, or that Pop's would drink himself into unconsciousness and be unable to defend neither himself nor anyone else.

 

Marco had all but lost his smile, the smile that had won Thatch over and had him join Pop's in the first place. He'd been wary of the giant man who claimed to want to protect him and Marco had taken it upon himself to help Thatch integrate into the crew. But over time, stress and weariness had Marco going days without smiling, skipping meals and relying on only the maximum amount of sleep needed to keep himself awake. His brother had been killing himself without even realizing it, and for someone who had the power of regeneration and near-immortality, that was saying something. Whiskey was constantly being summoned by anxious ship-brothers worried that Marco was going to keel forward over the railings.

 

Thatch remembered hauling Marco into his 'kitchen' and ordering him to eat the food he'd prepared – all of Marco's favorites. Marco had tried compromise by grabbing a sandwich so he could patrol while he ate, and Thatch had told him that if he didn't sit down and eat every last bite, he was going to throw the bag of flour at him.

 

Marco had given him that tired, strained smile, thanked him, and had then turned around, obviously thinking Thatch was joking. The sound of the bag exploding against the back of his head, the white clouds bursting and dousing him head to toe with white powder had stunned him completely. He had slowly turned to see Thatch standing there, readying a second bag with an evil grin.

 

What happened next went down into the Moby's logbook by Haruta as the epic food fight 'to end all food fights' - three hours of hurling various foodstuffs and kitchen appliances at each other before they ran out of steam, followed by the two of them sleeping in an exhausted pile for nearly fourteen hours straight. Then both Marco and Thatch had to spend the next two days dismantling and cleaning out deck 3's pipes after they had tried to wash mounds of flour and miscellanea off in the showers like the addle-brained idiots they were. Thatch remembered being scolded by Pops in between bouts of his deep, rolling laughter, and Marco had looked ten years younger with that grin on his face.

 

It had become a habit – and then a tradition – to prank people regularly, and while he'd come close to the edge of decency before, he'd never believed himself capable of stepping over the line into cruelty. Until he had done so.

 

“I went too far,” he said quietly. “I got cocky. I may have started playing pranks with good intentions, but apparently I've stopped paying attention to my conscience because the me of ten years ago would never have even considered doing what I did.”

 

Izou smiled at him. “Maybe. Your intentions are always good, Thatch. Why did you play this prank on Ace?”

 

Thatch sighed, wiping his hands over his face quickly. “I wanted him to relax,” he said softly. “I honestly couldn't think of a prank for him – I was worried about how he'd take one. But then one of my guys told him about the initiation prank and asked what his had been and Ace said he hadn't had one and he looked, I don't know, disappointed--”

 

“So you rushed together a prank without your usual considerations because you didn't want him to feel left out,” Izou finished for him.

 

That was a rather simplified way of looking at it. Thatch frowned as he thought it over. Even if Izou's words sounded right, it still didn't justify what he'd done. “I skipped part of my planning process,” he said. “I didn't stop to think about how the prank would make him feel aside from making him feel like everyone else.”

 

“Your pranks are usually well-received because you think of the psychological ramifications,” Izou agreed. “Would you play a prank on Haruta that involved her losing her clothes, even just a sleeve from her shirt?”

 

Thatch froze in horror. “Never,” he breathed. Haruta's discomfort with showing her own body had her covering up, neck to toes, every day regardless of weather. She refused to allow anyone to see any part of her body save for her hands and her face. It wasn't that there was anything physically wrong or aesthetically displeasing about her – it was her mindset. She had been told for years that her body was not for sharing with the world; it was something she shared only with her partner. It was a part of her culture that she carried with her. Pops even made sure that there was a private shower in the room he gave her, and medical was under orders to never remove any part of her clothing (unless it was life or death) until she was in the private room built into the infirmary.

 

Pranks on Haruta usually involved hair dye, or stealing her trinkets to embed in jello or hiding her room keys in vats of yogurt. The closest he came to involving her clothing was after she'd switched to a new tunic, when he dyed the white parts of her old uniform bright pink and neon green. After discovering it, she had worn it for a week until the others begged her to switch it out before she blinded their retinas.

 

“You normally take into consideration how people react to certain things,” Izou continued. “Ace has been the least forthcoming of all our brothers, yet as the youngest, he seems to be the most accepting of most things you do. Perhaps that, combined with your unusual rush, was what created this harebrained scheme of yours.” He smiled at the chef. “You would never intentionally harm our youngest.”

 

“Never,” Thatch rasped. “Never, never, never.”

 

Izou nodded and hugged him again, humming lightly. “Then let's go. You need sleep. Tomorrow I'll help you scheme some forgiveness plans.”

 

He began to walk out of the kitchen, his arm still around Thatch's shoulders. Thatch clutched at his friend and breathed deeply, his brain already miles ahead of them both, scheming and hatching plots to make things up to the newest member of the Whitebeard Pirates.

 

**o0o**

 

For someone known to pass out fast asleep at any given time, Ace was remarkably awake for the time of night. Marco, perched on a log across their impromptu campsite, watched the fire user gazing up at the stars while flat on his back, arms folded behind his head. The orange-red flames of the fire between them flickered in the night air, sending small embers floating into the sky. “Can't sleep, yoi?”

 

“Insomnia,” came the quiet reply. Ace didn't bother to turn his head, keeping his gaze on the shimmering constellations above. “A symptom of narcolepsy. I have trouble sleeping at night sometimes, which leads to the daytime sleepiness.”

 

“It seems like a vicious cycle,” Marco commented. “Is there a reason for the 'sometimes'?”

 

He heard Ace heave a sigh, and then the teen was turning on his side to face Marco through the dancing flames of the campfire. “Just things.” He waved a hand dismissively. “If I'm hungry, or I slept too much in the day. If...” he took a deep breath. “If I got too many things on my mind.”

 

“Like having a prank pulled on you that hurt you?”

 

Ace glared at him. “Yeah.”

 

Marco sighed, and poked the fire with a stick sending a shower of sparks skyward. “Can I say something, Ace? About Thatch? Without you getting upset or overly defensive?”

 

Ace's wary glare didn't let up, but he jerked his head in short nod.

 

“Thatch is not a mean person, Ace,” Marco began softly, trying to couch his words in the right way. “What happened as a result of this one was so far off from the usual outcome that it likely horrified him as much as it horrified you, yoi.”

 

A small sneer broke free on Ace's face, twisting his handsome features. “I doubt it.”

 

Considering the shock Ace had gone through, enough to trigger a burst of untrained Haoushouku Haki, Marco easily allowed him that. “Fair enough. A symbol of your deceased brother being desecrated is... unspeakable, you're right. But in all fairness to Thatch, he didn't know about Sabo.”

 

The sneer slipped away, being replaced with a snort and Ace rolled on to his back again, staring up at the stars. Obviously, that wasn't a good enough reason.

 

And technically, nor should it be. Ignorance was no real excuse, especially not to someone like Ace who accepted any and all responsibility thrust on him, according to his records. Marco decided to try another tack. “Did you know I'm the reason Thatch plays pranks at all?”

 

Ace's eyes slid to the side, watching him widely with surprise. “You?”

 

“Yup. It was years ago, back when there was only a fraction of us compared to how many members we have now,” Marco told him. “Back when the Moby was new and I was driving myself to an early grave trying to keep watch on everybody. We only had five commanders at the time, and over two hundred crew mates and none of them could defend themselves properly against raiders or Marines. I was terrified if I let myself relax or slip, one of my brothers, one of Pop's sons, would die. And it would be my fault.”

 

Ace sat up and turned to face him fully for the first time all night. “But it wouldn't be your fault, Marco,” he insisted, and Marco felt a familiar warmth grow in his belly at Ace's automatic defence. “You can't watch two hundred people indefinitely.”

 

“Oh, I know. But I sure as hell tried, yoi.” Marco gave a low chuckle as he recalled the memory of that period. “Whiskey said I looked half-dead all the time, and I couldn't eat – my stomach was always uneasy with nerves and worry. And sleeping? Forget about it – I was terrified if I slept more then the bare minimum, something would happen. I was Pop's first son, his First Mate, and I took that responsibility seriously. I didn't want Pop's to lose any of his children, and I was determined to protect them all.” Which was an impossibility he'd come to learn, despite all that he could do. Sometimes, things just happened. It was something Pops had finally drilled into him. Ace would understand that.

 

Marco tossed a few more sticks on the fire and stirred it up, giving Ace a chance to digest his words. Sure enough, eventually - “So how did Thatch play into that?”

 

Marco smiled reminiscently. “According to Thatch, the last time he'd seen me smile – really smile – had been back on board our old ship. I hadn't smiled since we broke the bottle on Moby's figurehead and set sail, yoi. So he took matters into his own hands and lured me into the kitchen under the pretence of me eating something. When I tried to back out, he pelted me with a sack of flour. Said if I was gonna haunt the ship like a deathly spectre, I should look the part.”

 

Marco grinned when he heard a laugh bubble out of Ace's throat, but kept his eyes on the fire.

 

“Anyway, we musta fought for three or four hours, Thatch throwing flour and eggs and a bottle of soy sauce at me, and me trying to brain him with sauce pans and swatting him with a spatula. Three hours of fighting and playing and laughing and I conked out there in the galley under the tables, my head on a pillow of corn starch and him lying across me, snoring into a patch of blue gelatin.” Marco sputtered a laugh at the memory. “I didn't wake up until well into the next day, yoi.”

 

Ace had given up trying to control himself and was giggling along with him. “Oh my god, what a mess that must have been.”

 

“That was nothing,” Marco said, grinning hard. “The real mess was the next day when we two genius's, half-asleep, decided the best way to clean off fifty pounds of flour, rice and starch was to hit the showers. The water turned everything into glue and sealed up the pipes like cement.”

 

Ace howled with laughter and fell onto his back, holding onto his sides.

 

“Pops pretended to be so mad at us but he couldn't stop laughing when he told us our punishment was to take the plumbing apart and clean everything up by hand, just the two of us. It took forever, trust me, yoi.” Marco rubbed his face with his hands. “Oh my god, what a mess.”

 

Ace continued to snicker for a while before his giggles tapered off and he sat back up. “But you felt better, I guess?”

 

Marco nodded. “It was amazing what, oh, fourteen or so hours of sleep can do for you. I even ate a full breakfast for the first time since boarding the Moby. Half our brothers kept stopping by our table to grin at me like idiots and I thought it was because they saw the First Mate get a dressing down from Pops. Thatch later told me it was because for some of them, it was the first time they'd seen me looking so happy, yoi.”

 

Ace frowned. “And Thatch was the reason for it.”

 

“Yup.”

 

There was a long silence and Marco let Ace set the pace on their conversation. He'd said what he wanted to, and now it was Ace's turn. To his surprise, it took almost an hour of Ace contemplating the fire between them before he finally spoke up, in a very small and almost unrecognizable voice:

 

“Why did he do... _that_ to me, then?”

 

Marco kept his voice calm and non-assuming. “Do what, Ace?”

 

Ace glared at him, looking momentarily enraged, but Marco raised his hand. “Specifically, Ace. Tell me, in your own words, what he did to you?”

 

Looking less enraged but more confused, Ace still managed to glare hotly at him. “He drugged me. Covered up Sabo's mark. He hurt me!”

 

Marco nodded. “All valid reasons to be pissed off, Ace. I'm not saying you shouldn't be. I just want you to keep in mind two things, okay? Can you do that for me?”

 

Another suspicious, wary glare. “What two things?”

 

“First, Thatch didn't know about Sabo. That's not an excuse for his behaviour, but I do know that if Thatch had had any idea of what your tattoo meant, particularly concerning a passed brother, the idea would never have even crossed his mind. There are somethings you just don't do, yoi.”

 

Ace glowered. “So it's my fault for not telling the whole ship everything about me?”

 

Marco held up his hands in a peaceful gesture again. “No, it's not. A tattoo is personal, it can be private, it holds meaning. It's why we all take Pop's mark and treat it as sacred.” He smirked. “Granted, not all tattoos are like that – catch Rakuyo with his shirt off and he'll happily tell you all about the dancing girl he fell in lust with and had her assets tattooed on his back while he was three sheets to the wind.”

 

Ace wrinkled his nose, momentarily confused and thrown off-kilter again. “He has a dancing girl on his back?”

 

“Nope.” Marco smiled serenely. “Just her... assets.”

 

Ace blinked, and then flushed bright red before choking on another bout of laughter. “He has a pair of... on his back?”

 

Marco nodded. “Hence the reason he almost never takes off his shirt, yoi. Rakuyo can take the jokes though – he maintains it was his own drunk-ass fault and he's determined to live with it. Sometimes, tattoos aren't serious. But it's hard to tell, and Thatch should have known better than to mess with one without knowing the story behind it.”

 

Ace nodded slowly, but his voice was small again. “So why did he?”

 

“Well, that goes into the second thing I wanted you to keep in mind. It was your initiation prank. Do you know what that is?”

 

“One of the guys asked a while back,” Ace said with a shrug. “He asked me what mine was and I had no idea what he was talking about.”

 

“That's because usually it happens within a month of joining the crew,” Marco said gently. “It's like a rite of passage Thatch started up to make people feel welcomed and included. He usually invites recent initiates to help him plan something, and pass it forward.”

 

“I'd been a member for three months,” Ace said quietly. A troubling look was starting to form on his face. “Was I...”

 

“You are definitely a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, our brother and Pop's son in every way you can be, yoi,” Marco said firmly. He wanted to nip that idea firmly in the bud. “But when you joined, there were a few problems we had to take care of first, remember?”

 

Ace blinked owlishly.

 

“It took a hundred days to get you to agree to join us,” Marco said fondly. “And it was worth every moment, and we would have waited even longer, as long as it took, to make you one of us. That's how much we wanted you, Ace.”

 

The teen ducked his head, the red flush from earlier making a swift reappearance.

 

“But after a hundred days of being the stubborn brat we know and love, you had some serious health issues we had to take care of, yoi,” Marco continued, keeping his voice gentle and his gaze soft. “You were underweight, and as a result from eating mostly fish for three months, your body chemistry needed serious modulating. Remember the vitamin regime you were on?”

 

“Still on,” came the soft reply.

 

“And all those half-healed injuries, not to mention you were as skittish as a newborn colt around everyone except for me, Thatch and Pops. It was obvious to all of us you weren't used to being around a lot of people, and you were wary of any mention of family. You trusted Pops because he told you he wanted you from the start. You told me you trusted my fire first, and then me. You trusted Thatch because he fed you, constantly.” Marco smiled. “You don't know how many times he just stopped work in the galley, leaving his team to handle everything while he ran back to his nook and whipped up whatever had just come into his head for you. He was determined to figure out what you needed to be healthy and get you there as fast as possible, yoi.”

 

Ace didn't say anything for a moment.

 

“Did you know you are the first new person in years that he's allowed into his kitchen nook?” Marco continued. “The last new person allowed was his division leader, and it took two years to gain that status. You'd been on the ship less than a month and you snarled anytime someone came near, but he kept dragging you into his own space because he was desperate to feed you, yoi.”

 

There was another long moment of silence before Ace broke it. “He drugged me.”

 

Technically, there was no real defence for that. Marco winced. “Yeah. That was definitely one of his dumber ideas. But I refuse to believe it was out of any sort of malice, Ace. Thatch is a chef. He's responsible for people's lives, for their health, on the sea, and he takes that seriously.”

 

“So why'd he do it?”

 

“If I had to hazard a guess?” Marco shrugged. “Rush planning.”

 

Ace blinked at him. “What?”

 

“Thatch's pranks are usually well-planned, yoi. He thinks about his target, works out the best way to prank them with the least amount of pain, emotional or other, and includes other recent targets in the planning process. It makes people feel involved, not targeted, and the end result is something everyone usually laughs at, including the victim. But this?” Marco shook his head. “I have the feeling that when Thatch realized how you'd been with us so long that everyone else had noticed you hadn't been properly 'welcomed' to the point where others were pointing it out to you, he went ahead with the first thing that came to mind so you wouldn't feel excluded. He didn't even take the time to get other recent 'victims' involved – he went straight to the commanders so they could get things done quickly.”

 

“You're saying this was an honest mistake,” Ace said, staring blankly at the fire.

 

“In a lot of ways, hell yes. He was more focused on getting your prank over with so you wouldn't be left out, rather than focusing on the planning stages he usually employs,” Marco said, shrugging his shoulders and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Stupid on his part. Foolish, and needlessly upsetting. But truly, yoi, I will never, _ever_ believe that he did any of this with a specific intent to harm you in any way.”

 

“Stupid...”

 

Marco looked up at Ace and saw tears falling. Standing swiftly, he moved around the fire to Ace's side and sat down next to the younger man, wrapping his arm around Ace's shoulders. The teen seemed to take it as permission to let go - it was like unblocking an emotional dam. He didn't sob out loud, but his shoulders shook almost violently, and he pressed his hands against his face, apparently unwilling to let Marco see his upset.

 

Marco ignored that and tugged the boy closer, resting his chin on Ace's head and releasing a few of his soft blue and yellow flames to encircle the boy, a protective gesture that Ace had responded to before, back when he'd been the suspicious and wary creature they'd all been courting.

 

“Why did he have to be so _stupid_?” Ace gasped, pressing the side of his head hard into Marco's chest. “If it had been... if he'd done anything else, I wouldn't have _cared_ , but this... this is... this was _Sabo_ and--” he stopped talking and a low keening whine escaped him.

 

Marco shushed him and tightened his grip, allowing the boy to feel secure as he finally let some of the hurt out of his heart. It wasn't Ace's nature to hold on to grudges, he saw that from his time on the Moby, but some pains could fester inside forever if they weren't purged. If there was to be any hope of Ace forgiving Thatch, he had to let go of the anger and resentment, and as he watched Ace's body shake and felt the warm wetness dampening his shirt from Ace's cheeks, he felt as though finally, he would be able to make that happen.

 

 

 

* * *

_to be continued..._

* * *

 

 

Thatch did a dumb, dumb thing, but he cares about Ace and Ace cares about him, and so there is going to be reconciliation. Ace will probably be able to forgive the nature of the prank, but Thatch is gonna have to do some groveling regarding the method, especially since he IS a chef and should have known better, rush planning be damned.

 


	10. Failed Initiation 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words: 3700  
> Notes: I just... yeah. See the end notes. XD

Ace calmed down fairly quickly and Marco let him pull away – not far, just enough to separate them and allow him a chance to regain his composure. He watched the teen scrub at his face with both hands, muttering something under his breath. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Ace said with a final rub of his forearm across his eyes and a loud sniff into the quiet of the night. “Just.... everything.”

 

Marco hummed, leaning forward and bracing his forearms across his knees. “You never finished telling me about Sabo,” he prodded gently, when it looked like Ace was neither falling asleep nor about to talk.

 

Marco very much wanted to hear the story about the person who obviously meant so much to his youngest crew mate. Not only to comfort Ace, but also so that he would know, and could provide the relevant warnings in the future. He'd already noticed a few people on board, usually deep in their cups (because provoking a fire-starter on a wooden ship while sober was tantamount to suicide in his opinion), poke fun at Ace for the misspelling of his name. Ace had always shrugged it off with a small laugh, but if Marco knew the story, he could intervene in time. Let future, newer crew mates know it was off-limits. He had no intention of spilling Ace's secrets, but knowing the story would make it easier to traverse the psychologically unstable ground that was Ace's mind and give the needed warnings.

 

Ace sighed and snapped his fingers, sending a fresh roar of flames up on the dimming embers. Marco followed his lead by tossing another log in – this was no doubt going to be a long night.

 

Embers wafted off the dry wood that snapped and crackled under the heat. Marco listened to them calmly, waiting patiently. He had all the time in the world and rushing would do neither of them any good. His phoenix crooned inside him at the feel of the heated air, and he reflected that his brother's upset aside, there were far more unpleasant ways to spend the night.

 

Then Ace heaved a low sigh, and Marco's eyes slid to the side, watching him.

 

“Sabo was born a noble,” Ace finally began, his voice a low rasp and practically vibrating with tension. “He hated it – hated the life he was forced to live, with people who back stabbed and sucked up to each other in the same breath, living with parents who saw him as a monetary value rather than their actual child. So when he was five, he ran away to Grey Terminal and just... never left.”

 

It actually took a full minute for Ace's words to truly penetrate and sink in. The sheer guts and intelligence it must have taken, both for a young child to realize what the real problem was and to actually go and do something about it, was staggering. Marco shook his head, recalling his own childhood and wondering if he'd been so aware of himself and the world at the time. “That's beyond incredible,” he said softly, meaning every word. There were actual adults, pirates even, who wouldn't have had the guts to do that at even thrice that age.

 

He was pleased to see Ace's smile return, albeit in a much smaller fashion. “Sabo _was_ incredible,” Ace agreed, lips curling briefly. “He practically forced me to become friends with him, after I did everything I could think of to drive him away. And when Luffy showed up...” Ace frowned, eyebrows furrowing in remembrance. “I wasn't a nice kid. I was fuckin' cruel, to be honest--” and the casual swear from the polite young man Marco had gotten to know told him exactly how true that must have been, “--and it was Sabo's intervention between us – well, that _and_ Luffy's sheer stubbornness - that kept us on an even keel once we started hanging out together.” His frown disappeared and the smile returned, not unlike watching the sun come out from behind a raincloud. “Sabo was the nice brother.”

 

Marco chuckled at that candid admission. While Ace could be and was perfectly civil and polite when necessary, he still had one hell of a short fuse and even before this entire tattoo fiasco had happened, he had warned the other commanders to tell their men to lay off the kid after Ace had hospitalized several of them for teasing him. A serious powerhouse, Ace sometimes didn't seem to know how to regulate his strength against 'normal' pirates, and if he'd been like that as a kid.... Marco shook his head.

 

Nice brother indeed.

 

“Anyway, long story short, one day the three of us were running through the city after another dine and dash and this old guy recognized Sabo. It was his dad.” Ace's hands clenched into fists as he spoke. “He hired the city guards to find us in Grey Terminal and threatened to shoot me and Luffy if Sabo didn't go home with him. I told Sabo not to, but he...” Ace wiped his fist across his face. “He said he couldn't risk us being hurt. So he left.”

 

Ace paused, staring at the fire like he was seeing his memories playing out in the flickering flames. It was a calm and quiet night, and Marco could hear the sounds of crickets coming from the grass beyond their campsite as he sat there, waiting patiently. In asking about Sabo, Marco knew he'd be getting a rather sad story, but one had to purge an infection before it could heal and if Ace was this worked up about it ten years later, that meant he'd allowed it to fester and that wasn't healthy.

 

Giving Ace a moment to breathe, Marco stirred up the fire and then, both enthralled by the story and wanting to hear the rest, he nudged Ace's knee gently. “What happened next?”

 

Pressing back against Marco, just a little, Ace continued. “Next?” He snorted a wet-sounding laugh. “Bluejam showed up.”

 

Ace had mentioned this pirate in passing a few times before, but had never really explained who or what this person was or did. Marco nodded. “I remember you saying something about a Bluejam when you helped bring Doma into the Whitebeards.”

 

“I did?” Ace blinked. “Oh. Same kinda laugh, I guess. Anyway, Bluejam was the local pirate running things underground in Goa and he had me and Luffy help him scatter boxes all over the Terminal for some extra cash – we didn't know they were full of explosives and oils. The people of High Town were preparing for a visit from a _Celestial Dragon_ \- “Ace practically snarled out the name, “- by getting rid of everything they considered 'unsightly'. Which meant burning down Grey Terminal.”

 

“Which still had people in it, I presume?”

 

“Yeah. A lot of people escaped but there were some.... they were too old, or too weak. You could smell... it smelled horrible, and you could hear people screaming but there was nothing any of us could do. Bluejam had Lu and I tied up in his hideout and we had to wait for them to leave. We managed to escape, but Bluejam came back and almost killed Luffy.”

 

Ace lowered his head and couldn't speak for a few moments – Marco didn't push him this time. He kept his arm pressed lightly against Ace's, a silent reminder that he was there for him, and left it at that. After a few minutes, Ace regained enough of his composure to continue. “The bandits showed up just in time. It took a few days for me to make it back to the hideout on the mountain with Dadan, the bandit leader. The other bandits had brought Luffy straight away – I'd stayed to fight Bluejam and Dadan stayed to help me.” Ace shook his head. “I was so fucking stubborn. Dadan got hurt helping me. I had to carry her on my back to a hollow tree nearby to hide until the smoke from the fire cleared and the pirates left. Only left to get water or to find food.”

 

Marco almost couldn't believe the story he was hearing. It sounded like the premise to an old-fashioned adventure novel, like the ones he'd read as a child. Fires and bandits and pirates, kidnappings and shootings, but at the heart of it all, instead of heavily muscled heroes and beautiful buxom maidens, it was three small children, the oldest of whom had barely reached the age of eleven for fucks sakes. “How long did it take you to get yourself and Dadan home?”

 

Ace sighed. “Almost four days. I got home in time to check on Luffy and change, and then Dogma, one of the bandits who took care of me when I was little, said he saw Sabo setting out to sea just as the Celestial Dragon was coming into port.” Ace swallowed hard, glaring with pure hatred and misery at the fire crackling in front of them. “They didn't care that Sabo was just a kid, and that he wasn't even in the way of their ship. They just fired on Sabo's boat and blew it up.” Ace took a deep breath. “They killed him because he wanted to get out of there so damn badly...”

 

Marco closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Beside him he could hear Ace's breath shake, feel the muscles in his arm pressed against Marco tremble. Blowing up a tiny ship for no reason, none whatsoever. Killing the tiny captain aboard for sport, like his little life didn't even matter, and Marco knew that to Celestial Dragons, it _didn't_ matter. Marco had met some truly awful pirates in his day, but he'd never in his very _very_ long life ever met anyone so cruel as those who called themselves Celestial Dragons. They were truly beyond humans only in that they had completely forfeited their humanity itself.

 

Ace folded his arms on his knees and traced the crossed out 'S' on his arm. “This was Sabo's jolly roger,” he said quietly.

 

 _Ouch_. Marco stifled a groan at the double insult – not only had they desecrated a personal tattoo, they'd erased (however temporary) his dead brother's pirate mark. No wonder Ace had been royally pissed off.

 

“That's not even the worst part,” Ace said quietly.

 

Marco blinked twice – _hard_ – and stared at his younger companion. “Do I even want to know what would be worse than all that?”

 

The fire-starter let out a hoarse chuckle – a sound Marco recognized. It was the sound of someone who had given up on themselves, who had done something horrible and they knew it. Something that hurt so deeply they could only laugh about it, otherwise they would spend the rest of their life crying instead. A sound that as a commander of one of the largest and most powerful forces on the sea, meant he had heard it coming from many subordinates and fellow commanders at one time or another.

 

It never boded well for anyone. He highly doubted he'd be surprised now.

 

“The worst part was that I could have saved his life,” Ace ground out. He rubbed a forearm harshly across his eyes, smearing wetness across his cheeks. “Luffy begged me to go save him, that we could go and get him back. I told Luffy--” he stopped, seeming to choke on his words. He swallowed once, twice, loudly. Marco saw his Adam's apple bob with the action. “I said Sabo was better off there.” His hands suddenly reached up and latched onto his hair, gripping the dark strands forcefully. “He had parents, a huge mansion with his own, actual bed to sleep on instead of the floor, plenty of food he didn't have to go and hunt for himself and no bandits to fight off to ensure he got his share. Why the hell would he leave all that to come back to--” Ace broke off again, chest heaving as he tried to get himself back under control.

 

Marco reached out and gripped Ace's arm, attempting to give him an anchor in the sea of his whirling emotions. There wasn't much he could say to make any of this seem all right – none of it was okay by the standards of any rational, compassionate human being, but there was nothing he could do. This was all a nearly a decade in the past, and all he could do was help Ace work his way through it so he could face the future with no regrets.

 

He had his work cut out for him, that was for damn sure.

 

Ace took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself, and scrubbed his face again before giving Marco a weak smile. “Nearly eight whole years and it still hits me like it's that damn week all over again every time I think about it.”

 

Marco nodded slowly. “Not surprising,” he said calmly. He let Ace's arm go, seeing the teenager had his control back. “Something that traumatizing... it can leave a person hurting for a long time. It will always hurt, but it does dull over time.” He shrugged. “Losing a brother... that's not something that will go away with any sort of swiftness.”

 

“I don't really want it to,” Ace murmured softly. “The day it stops hurting to think about him... I'm terrified that's when I'll realize I've started to forget him. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to remember what his face looked like.” His smile grew, just a tiny bit, but Marco was heartened to see it. “Some things though, I'll never forget. Like that stupid napkin he wore around his neck.”

 

“Napkin?”

 

“Fancy kinda tie for nobles.”

 

Marco chuckled. “A cravat?”

 

Ace pointed his index finger at him. “That's it.” He laughed. “Or the diamond-plated goggles on his top hat. Or my favorite – the gap in his mouth from where I knocked out his front tooth in one of our first sparring matches.” Ace grinned openly this time. “He was so pissed off because he'd already lost his baby tooth there, which meant I knocked out his first adult tooth. He yelled at me for days about how he'd need to have a dentist replace it one day because I couldn't control my stupid strength.”

 

Marco laughed out loud at that. “He sounded like he was a good kid.”

 

Ace nodded, smile growing softer. “He was the best.” Ace blinked. “Well, him and Luffy. They're both the best. But...” he shot Marco a tiny look that spoke of a different kind of guilt. “Is it bad that Luffy was... _is_ my favorite?”

 

Marco laughed again, unable to stop himself. “That is a dangerous question ask me, Ace. I have over sixteen hundred brothers, some I know better than others, and you want to talk about favorites?”

 

Ace blinked – and then pushed at him with a tiny grin. “Okay, so who is it?”

 

Marco shook his head and ruffled Ace's hair. Okay, so he had a favorite. But it would never do to let him know. “You had more time with Luffy, it's not surprising that he would be your favorite.”

 

But Ace shook his head. “That's not it. I hated Luffy at first, you know.”

 

Marco did know. “Why?”

 

“He was so damn happy. I couldn't understand just why he was so happy to be dragged out to the middle of nowhere to live with bandits. And he kept following me – no matter what I did to him. I dropped trees on him, kicked him off bridges, dropped him into the ravine full of wolves – and all of this was before I knew he had a devil fruit.” He shot Marco a guilty look. “Then I stole a bag of loot from the men of our local pirate group.”

 

“Bluejam?” Marco guessed.

 

Ace nodded. “They captured Luffy to make him lead them to us, and I was convinced he'd blab it out. Luffy couldn't keep a secret to save his life – literally. Or so I thought.” He took a deep breath – obviously this set of memories was no more pleasant than the last batch. “Sabo and I worked like crazy to move our loot to a new hideout but it still took us a couple of hours. By then we realized that no one had come looking for us. That for whatever reason, Luffy hadn't told the pirates where we were.”

 

Marco felt his guts go cold from realization.

 

“We grabbed our pipes and ran to their hideout. We broke in to see Luffy – tiny, happy little Luffy – dangling almost unconscious from a rope, covered in bleeding wounds and silently sobbing. They'd been beating him with spiked gloves the whole time.” Ace took a deep breath. “We took out Porchemy and got him out of there and the first thing I did was yell at him for being so stupid. I couldn't understand why the hell he just hadn't told Porchemy the info he wanted.”

 

“He was protecting you,” Marco said quietly, and it wasn't a guess. His instincts were confirmed when Ace nodded.

 

“He thought if he told, then I'd never be his friend.” Ace tossed another log on the fire, sending a wave of sparks dancing into the air again. “Even Sabo hadn't gone that far to be my friend. He didn't have to. He just grew on me over time in the beginning. But Luffy... he was determined to be my friend from the start and nothing I did scared him away.” He smiled and then gave Marco a shy look. “I didn't know it at the time... but I loved him for that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just had a really shitty way of showing it.” He snuck a look at Marco. “You think Sabo... you think he knew? That I... you know...”

 

“Loved him too? No doubt about it. You and your brothers... that's a damn special relationship you have there,” Marco told him, gently but firmly. “The bonds you have with them... those are the kind that never fade. Not even with death.”

 

“I know.” Ace sighed and glanced at his arm, rubbing the crossed out 'S'. “When I thought it was gone, even for just a minute...”

 

“I understand, Ace,” Marco interrupted him. “More then ever, I understand. And again, I'm sorry. It never should have happened.”

 

“But it did.” Ace's face suddenly turned blank as he gazed at the fire. “What am I supposed to do about that?”

 

Marco shrugged. “Be as angry as you need to be,” he said. “Though without death threats. Please. Having just had this particular conversation with you, you know what it feels like to have someone threaten your brothers, even if they've been an idiot.”

 

Ace smiled briefly but it left just as fast as it arrived. “I guess.”

 

There was quiet for a while, Marco letting himself digest the incredible stories he'd been told by his youngest brother, and Ace, letting his emotions settle from the roller coaster they'd been on since they'd left the Moby. That Ace was asking about what he was supposed to do next was a good thing in Marco's opinion. Ace's anger had finally been burned out, and now he could work on helping the kid forgive Thatch. He had no doubt Ace would in time, but there was nothing in the books that said he couldn't help speed the process along.

 

Older brother's privilege and all that.

 

“It's almost dawn,” Marco remarked casually, seeing the horizon starting to lighten.

 

“Not my first all-nighter,” Ace replied. Then - “I don't want to be angry.”

 

Marco shot him a quick look. “You don't?” While this was hopeful to hear, it was also confusing.

 

Ace sighed, scooching back onto the rock, bringing his legs up and folding his arms onto his knees. “All this talking reminded me about how it felt to be angry at my brothers... no matter how stupid they were, I still forgave them in the end. But this is different. My brothers made me mad from being stupid, or over-protective or stuff like that. They never... it never felt like betrayal before.” His eyes darted to Marco's as if he were afraid of what he was saying, before zipping back to the fire pit.

 

Marco nodded slowly, understanding where Ace was coming from. “I do get that, Ace,” he said calmly. “What Thatch did was stupid, immature and emotionally painful – and that was before we had any clue about the significance of your tattoo.” He sighed. “Messing with someone's tattoo is bad enough, but to add in narcotics and food tampering... there is a lot of wrong here Ace, and it's not yours.”

 

“....Thank you.”

 

“Hmmm?” Marco glanced at the kid again. “For what?”

 

“For not automatically assuming I was at fault for losing my temper and leaving the way I did. For understanding that I take my meds seriously, and that a chef, even a commanding chef, has no right to mess with that.” Ace licked his lips, showing his nervousness. “Thank you for that.”

 

Marco sighed and reached out to ruffle Ace's hair roughly, ignoring the squawk that came from the brat as he did so. “Anytime kid.”

 

* * *

o0o

* * *

 

 

 

Thatch watched nervously as familiar blue and yellow flames soared high in the air, arcing their wy towards the Moby. Beneath them, he could make out the bright yellow of Ace's _Striker_ , a rooster tail of steam and water being propelled behind it. They were almost there, and Thatch took a deep breath.

 

He was ready to do whatever it took to make it up to his youngest brother.

 

 

O0o

_to be continued_

o0o

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, yeah, I know, I said 5. Apparently I have a lisp when I type and should have put six. *nodsnods*
> 
> I figured I should post this part and give you something to chew on now rather than wait forever for the completed part. You're welcome. 
> 
> Also, I hope you like it. I worked on this part over weekends for the last several months and rewrote entire chunks of it like 3 times, trying to make it realistic and angsty yet have some smiles and hope in there too. I hope I pulled it off, but you know, only you can tell me if I did it right. *nudges you to the review box*


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